


Whispering Sighs of the Blade

by erynnar



Series: Kai Cousland [3]
Category: DAA, DAO - Fandom, Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age Awakenings, Dragon Age Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 36,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erynnar/pseuds/erynnar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shorts,what do Cousland's companions think of her?  These are told from their point of view.  Based on the prequel to "Soulmates," "The First Cut is Always the Deepest." Not necessary to follow those stories to read these and enjoy them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duncan's First Letter

**BioWare owns all but what I make up. : )**

 

_For those of you who follow my Kai story “Soulmates,”  you know I started a prequel of her noble origin story “The First Cut is Always the Deepest.”  I wanted to tell stories about Kai from the others’ points of view. And they all have their unique way of voicing it and their impressions. And I wrote this to coincide with the prequel to enhance your enjoyment of it, I hope.  : )_

 

_And I owe the biggest shout out for this to my friend, one of my sainted betas, and one of the most creative, talented ladies I have ever had the privilege to brainstorm with **Ladyamesindy**. She is rubbing off on me. Thank you dear lady! : )_

 

_And thanks to you all who read my other works.  To all of my lurkers and  reviewers,  you are so important to me.  I appreciate you, your support is my  bat that keeps the Goblins of Self Doubt away, the nasty little blighters. : )_

 

_Blessings!_

 

_\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

 

 

 

~Report on the Potential Recruits at Highever~

 

Bernardo,

 

I received your last correspondence. It reached me just as I was leaving Denerim.  I am glad the only recruit I found in Redcliffe, Ser Jory, is safe with you at Ostagar.  Unfortunately, I have sent you only one more potential recruit. 

 

I know these are not the larger numbers we had hoped for.  The last few potential recruits would not make suitable Grey Wardens.  Oh, there were plenty of volunteers.  Most were nothing more than boys with peach fuzz on their faces wanting to be heroes out of legend.  They were told of The Grey Wardens and riding Griffons.  Maker, I hate when they ask about the Griffons! 

 

The few actual adult men who came to me did not have the requisite skills to fight the darkspawn.  Unfortunately with peace has come complacency.  Most are trained in only the most rudimentary of fighting skills.  Most of those skills are used to fight off bandits who are neither skilled nor organized; let alone something as strong and tough to kill as a darkspawn Alpha.  Coupled with their lack of armed skills against such a powerful foe, most of them would not handle the horror of facing monsters such as them. 

 

The newest recruit is from Denerim and I ran into him as I was leaving by the city gate.  Or rather, he ran into me.  He is a pickpocket you see.  I felt his hand on my purse.  I caught him red handed, as the saying goes. I thought I had a good grip on him but he slipped out from my grasp and ran.  Of course I gave chase.   And truth be told, though you are not to tell him this, he reminds me of me when I was younger and on the streets of Val Royeaux.  He ran straight into the guards of Denerim which is a good thing.  He would have been able to outrun me if the hunt had gone on much longer.  The man is fast, strong, nimble and quick.  It took four guards to hold him down and take him away.  I had to invoke the Right of Conscription; they were to hang him on the morrow. 

 

Of course after that I felt it prudent to leave Denerim and quickly.  I have no desire to further anger the Arl of Denerim or the head of the City Guard than I already had.  I often wonder at  how the Maker works in mysterious ways. 

 

That delay in Denerim allowed your letter to reach me.  I was about to make my way to Highever to hopefully test a young woman there with great potential, as you know.  But what I didn’t tell you is that the young lady in question is just that, a lady.  She is the daughter of my friends Bryce and Eleanor Cousland.  Her name is Kaidana, though if I remember correctly she is referred to as Kai, or as Bryce calls her, ‘his fierce girl.’  And she is just that, if what I have heard about her is true.  She is skilled in duel weapons, and archery, and uses an open handed form of fighting that is quite unique.  She once fought an opponent while handicapped with a broken arm and still won the battle.  Unfortunately, I don’t anticipate that Bryce or Eleanor will even consider allowing me to test her for recruitment. Her older brother, Fergus, and her father go to join with King Cailan's forces at Ostagar.  Not to mention whether the young lady in question would choose to join us. 

 

So, I must admit that I was pleased to see in your letter, the name of another potential recruit at Highever.  I know this may be manipulative, if the lady in question does wish to join despite her parents; I may be able to gauge this by telling them I am there to recruit Ser GIlmore instead.  I hate to use the slightest of deception, especially with old and dear friends, but these are desperate times. 

 

You know of the dreams.  This is a true Blight, and we need more talented people to join us.  We do what we must, and we do what it takes. Pray to the Maker my friend that we gain victory.  For the sky is dark and a storm is coming and we need as many lights to hold back the dark as we can find, and if I am right, this young woman will be the brightest of those lights. 

 

I will send word after I have met with her.

 

In war, victory.  In peace, vigilance.  In death, sacrifice.

 

Duncan


	2. Duncan's Second Missive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duncan's second letter to his second Bernardo after his meeting Kai for the first time since she was four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. Thanks for all the kudos, reviews and hits! Please support and read each others' works.

Bernardo,  
The meeting went as I'd feared and predicted, and as I'd hoped too. But I suppose I should begin at the beginning.

I know you will remember that I told you that I met Kaidana Cousland when her father held a tourney in honor of King Maric. I told you how precocious she was even then. She climbed in the king's lap bold as you please and demanded stories. Of course Eleanor and Bryce were embarrassed. But Maric kept her at his side the entire time, sharing cheese and stories, I think Maric enjoyed her company more than the tourney. At one point, the rambunctious lass found the dagger sheathed at his belt and convinced the king to let her examine it, fascinated not only by the designs and decorations but by the blade itself. I told you I had my eye on her even then.

Well Bernardo, she is just as bold as brass and even more exceptional than she was at the age of four. In fact, my friend, the years have only honed those qualities and polished them. I watched her training today, in the practice yard. Her love of daggers has continued and has developed into an impressive skill. She is quick and nimble. She enjoys besting the braggarts who throw insults and challenge her; yet when they are defeated soundly, she does not revel in her victory nor taunt them with their loss to a woman. If anything she takes them aside and shows them how to improve their stance, or their grip; or she shows them a maneuver they had not known, or strategies they can use to beat someone like her, for the next time. She seems to have sharpened that spit-fire personality into a disciplined warrior.

What I have observed of her abilities and temperament, in person, has only proven to me that I was right about her, and that she and her skills are an ideal fit for the Grey Wardens. And while I know this, I also realize what it would cost her and I dread doing so to someone so young, vibrant and alive. Our lives are shortened considerably, part of me dreads doing that to someone as alive as this, first Alistair, now her?

I know what you are thinking, my friend. I can hear your voice as if we were sitting in the mess hall sharing a tankard. You would tell me that with Alistair I had no choice. It was the only way to save him from a life of misery in the Chantry. The Revered Mother was not about to let the boy go despite her hatred of him. The lad would have ended his own life if he had had to spend one more month in that place. And I promised Maric that I would watch out for him, though Eamon effectively cut me out of his life once Maric was gone. My arguments against the abuse and neglect from that wife of his... well, removing Alistair from the Chantry was the very least I could do to keep that promise and honor the memory of my friend.

But this young woman, she has everything to live for. She could have a life with a husband and children. Being a Grey Warden will not save her but end her future before she has a chance to live it. All it will do is turn her into a tool which we shall use to end the Blight that will soon be upon us as waves crashing upon the rocky shore. I know I hear you quoting our motto and reminding me that we do whatever it takes. But why does that have to be so Maker be damned hard? It is one thing to let it fall glibly off the tongue and it sounds great on recruitment posters, but the reality, as with so many things in life, is anything but.

If only we had more Wardens in Ferelden. If only Loghain did not argue against bringing in the Orlesians to help in the fight, if only, if only, if only. With the Calling drawing nearer for me and the Blight newly upon us, I find myself more and more in the land of 'if only.'

The young lives I have ended abruptly or shortened considerably with each Joining leave their mark on my soul. But enough of such maudlin musings many of which you, as my second, have had to endure on a regular basis. Back to the topic at hand, one Lady Kaidana Cousland, yes?

When I entered the hall, I was struck by what a beauty she has become. She has the raven black hair her mother had at that age, but her eyes are the piercing blue of her grandfather Malcolm's, and they seem to take everything in as did his.

That she had Dalish blood writing imprinted on her features told me she did not care what others thought of her looks; particularly the nobles who might take offense at elven tattoos on a human face. Though it does speak of a rebellious nature, and a blatant disregard for authority or social pressures, some things don't change with the passing of the years it seems.

Her frank appraisal of me was both disconcerting and flattering. My earring and my beard seemed to catch her eye the most. The way she has of cocking her eyebrow and quirking a smile is enough to make most men's hearts race. Even a man at my age...well, I have to admit it was a boost to my ego to be noticed in such a way, by one such as she. It took every ounce of discipline I had not to grin like a school boy--DO NOT let Alistair see this part of the letter, that is an order.

It was also fascinating, my friend, watching her react to both myself and Arl Rendon Howe. Howe was not pleased to see me, which bothers me for reasons I cannot say. Something is not right here. I hope to discover what it is before I have to return to Ostagar. Howe's reaction sent alarm bells off in my head. Howe's reaction to my being a Grey Warden seemed to do the same for her as well. And it brought home to me how very observant she is, how extremely aware of her surroundings she is. Her eyes follow every detail like hawk hunting its prey.

She took Howe's measure and found the man coming up short, despite his sycophantic groveling. Her ability to see beyond the masks that all of us present for others to see is a trait that would serve her well in our ranks. It would be hard to keep secrets from her, of that I have no doubt.

So, I come to the good news, bad news portion of this letter to you, my friend. I did indeed get the response I had expected from Bryce. Even with my softening the request to recruit her by telling him I was there to recruit Ser Gilmore, it did not help my case. Bryce was adamant about her not becoming a Grey Warden. It was as I feared; he worries that he might lose Fergus in the upcoming battle. Kaidana would be his only surviving child. How could I tell him that a Blight is coming and there may not be a Fereldan left alive if we don't do everything we can to stop it?

And this is the extraordinary part; I thought I had schooled my face. I had no desire for Bryce to see my disappointment or my fear. My heart was in my boots, my face I set in stone. But she saw it, my friend. She saw my fear, my disappointment. I could tell by the way she looked at me. Her eyes got slightly wide and she cocked her eyebrow at me. She did not let it show to anyone else present but me, but she knew and she kept it our secret.

I have to tell you my friend, I was still reeling from her astuteness, and I thought she had turned to go. Her father and Howe were talking. She came back asked her father if she might have a word with me briefly, as she would be seeing to my needs as a guest, and she pulled me aside.

I tried to sound stern, telling her that her father wished to speak with me and Arl alone. But my tone of voice did not have her flinching, or apologizing, or begging my pardon. She was not the least bit cowed in any way. She simply placed a strong hand on my arm and asked if we might speak together. I told her as her father had put her in charge of the castle and that I would speak to her before the dinner hour the next day. She did not accept my answer, and inquired if we could not meet sooner. I must say the scent the floated around her, the closeness of her presence and that strong will had me almost squirming like a disobedient child. I found that I was the one who wanted to beg her pardon under those piercing blue eyes. It took what self-mastery I had, to sound cool and in charge. I told her I would see her at breakfast tomorrow, before I tested Ser Gilmore.

And then she leaned in and whispered to me, "I saw your face. I know it must be worse than they all know. You need more Grey Wardens Ser Duncan. I shall work on my father. You shall have me in your ranks. We Couslands always do our duty." And with that she winked and gave me a slight smile and a salute before taking her leave. I must admit I was at a loss, and it took me a moment to recover so I could speak to Bryce again without embarrassing myself.

She is strong and strong willed. But will she break? That is the question, my friend, and my only concern. An oak is mighty and strong, but it will break in a fierce wind. The Willow on the other hand, bends and sways with the storm. Strength she has, make no mistake. But we are facing a tempest the likes of which have not been seen for four hundred years. Will she be the Willow or the Oak?

Well, I had best put a stop to this letter here, or I will never get it sent. I will test her when I test Ser Gilmore, if she demands it. And I know she will. And while we may not have her at the battle at Ostagar, I take heart knowing we may have her with us yet, for what is to come after.

I hope the rest of the Wardens are keeping up with their training. Remind them that despite Cailan's propensity to treat each battle fought against the darkspawn thus far, as a faire with drinking and wenching, it is anything but. See that they stay sharp.

In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.

Duncan

P.S. And please make sure our food supplies are restocked before the battle (Alistair that had better not be the last piece of cheese, my boy!).


	3. Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lovely Ser Gilmore, who I always took to be the silent romantic type. Always feeling too lowly to court Kai (being the son of a minor Bann whose holding was more of a large farm than anything else). Kai's red-headed conscience, and her stalwart and steady shadow since childhood. I hope you enjoy his poem, it is inspired by my own experience with unrequited love (haven't we all had them, Eros is a tricky fellow with his arrows) and a poem by Amy Lowell called "Petals".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. Thanks for bookmarks, kudos, and the love! You are all awesome!

My world is an ache  
That never ceases  
The beat of my heart’s cries;  
Never to be told,  
To the one for whom it murmurs and frets.

I yearn to release  
This secret locked  
Within the deepest recesses of my soul;  
But the words cease  
A road that ends  
Before my tongue can unravel them and lay them at your feet.

Your flashing eyes  
Mimic laughing lips  
That say a name meant only for me.  
Such a gift, a song for my heart;  
The tune is played. Your utterances the fingers, my heart the lute,  
Desire the strings; love the notes that tremble in the gilded air.  
But the dulcet tones of this melody,  
Are quickly taken by the errant breeze of silence;  
So filled with avarice that it snatches the words of love from my lips,  
Leaving me helpless to explain my unceasing adoration,  
My devotion, my passion.  
And then like the devious zephyr, you too are gone,  
leaving longing in your wake.


	4. Harvest Sweet Buns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story begins with a heavy, leather bound book with the Cousland’s favorite recipes. The pages are yellowed, dog eared, and stained with spots of oil, and other foods. Notes have been added to some of the recipes from cooks past and present. In this case, the present Queen of the Highever scullery: one Nan by name, who is not just the cook, but former nanny to Fergus and Kai (Imp). This is her realm, and Nan reigns supreme, in this she is the Maker himself...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shout-out to all my betas, my friends, and those who've given kudos and bookmarked. Thank you! This is from a real recipe which came from http://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/CinnamonRollsFantastic.htm

~Harvest Sweet Buns~

1 cup milk heated do not let it boil  
1/4 cup warm water (boiling)  
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract  
1/2 cup butter, room temperature  
2 eggs room temperature and beaten  
1/2 teaspoon salt  
1/2 cup granulated sugar  
5 cups bread flour  
3 teaspoons active yeast

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients in the order given except the Cinnamon Filling. Using a sturdy wooden spoon, mix everything together until a soft dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly buttered surface, and knead until elastic, approximately 10 minutes. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. _**(Might as well make the filling while the dough rests, yes? It’s called multi-tasking you lazy good for nothings! Well, don’t just stand there, get to it!)**_

~Cinnamon Filling~

1/2 cup butter, melted or softened  
1 cup firmly-packed brown sugar  
4 to 5 tablespoons ground cinnamon  
3/4 to 1 cup chopped nuts _**(optional, though the ‘Imp’ favors almonds not other nuts, mind you only put in almonds, chopped fine!)**_  
Soften the butter; set aside. In a bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon; stir in chopped nuts. NOTE to you elven servants! Sift the bloody sugar and cinnamon so it doesn’t get lumpy. I hate lumpy filling, you wind up biting into a bun and getting a big glob of bitter cinnamon, and no one wants that! Don’t make me skin the hide off of you! Need I mention nails and the kitchen wall to nail that hide too?

Butter a 9 x 13 x 2-inch baking pan; set aside.

After dough has rested, roll and stretch the dough into approximately a 15 x 24-inch rectangle. Brush the 1/2 cup softened butter over the top of the dough with a pastry brush. Sprinkle Cinnamon Filling over the butter on the prepared dough. Starting with long edge, roll up dough; pinch seams to seal. _**(Note: Roll them too tightly you lazy louts and the middle will pop out and make them look strange! While that may not affect the flavor it isn’t pretty to look at. Highever often has distinguished guests. Presentation is important! See you don’t mess it up or again, I’ll be forced to nail your sodding hides to the kitchen wall, see if I won’t!)**_

With a knife, lightly mark roll into 1 1/2-inch section. Use a sharp knife _**(I like to use a serrated knife and saw very gently, mind you I said gently! Refer to my previous note as to why!)**_. Place cut side side up in prepared baking pan, flattening them only slightly.The unbaked sweet buns should not touch each other before rising and baking. Do not pack the unbaked sweet buns together! Again see the aforementioned reference to the kitchen wall and your hides!

 

Cover and let rise in a warm place for approximately 45 to 60 minutes or until doubled in size (after rising, rolls should be touching each other and the sides of the pan).

Build the fire in the oven until a bed of red hot coals lies on the bottom about five inches thick. Bake approximately 15 to 30 minutes until they are a light golden brown. _**(Mind you use the bellows to blow the coals and keep the heat even! We don’t want the rolls raw in the middle and burned on the bottom! Again, hides, nails, and walls due to unhappy guests. Need I say more? I didn’t think so!)**_

Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Spread butter and honey over the sweet buns while still warm. Best served warm, but room temperature is also acceptable _**(Especially seeing how most of our ‘noble’ guests can’t seem to get their lazy carcasses up sooner than the noon lunch bell).**_

This recipe yields 15 cinnamon rolls _**(That 's 15, mind you! And believe you, me I can count! If there are less than 15 I will make you dredge out the drain in the kitchen floor for filching food and eating on the job!).**_

 

I often have to chuckle at myself when I read my own notes. Sod it, my feet are killing me. I was half teasing the Imp that I would quit and work in a nice Bannorn in the country. I wouldn’t go cook, I would just retire. But, if I stop, I might as well be dead. At least that was the motto of my old da’ and it suits me fine.

Maker, just between you and me, I am exhausted. Feeding the nobles and Bryce’s army, plus men that came with that snake Howe, and the weasel Howe himself, it’s quite a task. And my darling longtime friend and lady of the house, Ellie, has guests as well with that Lady Landra, the woman’s son (handsome boy, great set of hands from the looks of him too), and that elven woman her lady in waiting. I swear, if I get one more mouth to feed!

Hmpf, ladies in waiting, what a waste, at least I don’t have to worry about my Imp wanting one. That child! Her and her brother have made me gray before my time, I swear! But Imp, what can I say about that girl, Maker? Charms me no end she does. Bloody dog got into my larder, breaking things. Of course my Imp, she figured it out. Rats in there, large as those yapping lap dogs the noble ladies all love to carry about. Those bloody big ones from the Kocari Wilds. Blast, must have come in on one those supply wagons. She loves that Blight wolf, she does, and I love him too because she does. I admit I was more cross, Maker, than I should have been. The dog has never broken things deliberately.

And there she was Maker, Imp, with the same black hair her ma’am had at her age. Those big blue eyes just a twinkling with mirth, never been cowed by me, not even when she was small. Kissed my cheek, bold as brass, and called my bluff. Maker, I am grateful every day you had my life meld with Ellie’s, if only for that girl. I was the first to put my hands on her the squalling little thing as she practically fell into my arms; screeching like a banshee, black hair all damp, skin messy with coming into this world. The minute I held her up she got so quiet, and opened those eyes which looked into mine. She had me right at that moment, Maker.

I have done my best to do right by Ellie and Bryce in helping to raise her and her brother with good heads on their shoulders. If I do say so, Maker, I think I did, she is not only strong, but kind and generous too. Just between you and me Maker, I am proud of that girl. She even reminds me a bit of myself at that age. A real spit-fire she is!

Well Maker, I have been chattin’ with you long enough. I need to get the food for all those mouths made, and my Imp’s favorites, these sweet buns. I have miles to go before I sleep Maker. You watch out for my Imp you hear, because I don’t want to have to come to the Fade and kick your arse! Good, enough said!


	5. She is My Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Argus tells us of his feelings for his bond mate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. 
> 
> I offer my humblest, sincerest apologies and heartfelt love to the Bard of Avalon, one Mr. Shakespeare, by name. And my apologies to those of you who might be lovers of his works and take offense at my cheek. If you are offended, get thee to a nunnery! : ) Really, I hope you enjoy Argus’s tail...erm tale.

~Argus~

To bark, or not to bark: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the ear to suffer the wicked sharp tongue of Nan,

Or take fangs against a slew of giant rats,

And by vanquishing them? To eat: to snack on pork bits;

No more bits; and stomach full to nap by the fire

And dream of chasing things, or of getting a rub behind the ears

which is all a dog could wish for.

 

 

I smell. I smell large furry creatures. They smell like dust and sour. There, they are there. I know, I smell. I hear. I hear and smell. Must tell pack. Furry creatures eat pack’s food. Furry creatures bite and claw. Not as good as I bite and claw. I must tell pack. Pack must keep food, must kill creatures.

 

Elder pack mate, keeper of food, yells and bares her teeth. I show mine. She does not know. Furry creatures coming. Nudge door with nose. Furry creatures, stuck. Furry creatures stuck with me. They bite and claw. Not as good as I bite and claw. Furry creatures run and hide. I am angry. They are here eating pack’s food.

 

I smell dust and sour among food smells. Must stop furry creatures! Elder pack mate not knowing, need pack leader, she will know. Leader is smart. Must get leader to come. Must break things. Break things is bad. Must break to get leader here.

 

Elder opens door, elder pack leader barks, points things broken. Bad to break things, but need leader here! Nudge door closed on elder pack leader again. Furry creatures squeak and hiss. My bark scares them, it is predator to prey. Furry creatures bite and claw, I bite and claw better! My bark tells them so!

 

I hear pack leader’s voice. I smell her scent. I hear and smell my pack leader. She is leader, my queen. I love her. She is pack leader. She will know.

 

I hear knight pack mate. He wants to be alpha mate to pack leader. I hear his voice when he talks to her.I smell his scent when he is near her. Pack leader does not know. She does not smell it. She does not hear it. I hear and smell him. He is here to help pack save food.

 

She is here in room, leader, queen. She will know. I bark to tell her. I jump and bunch muscles. Leader knows my talk. She knows what I say. Pack leader is smart. She will know!

 

Knight pack mate almost knows. But he is not pack leader. Pack leader barks for door to close.  Knight pack mate makes door close. Furry creatures know they have no choice. They come to bite and scratch. But I bite and scratch better!

 

Pack leader she bites with fangs held in paws that grab. The furry creatures bite and scratch.  Pack leader bites and scratches better!

 

One tries to sneak, tries to bite pack leader! I close teeth on it. I snap bones, taste blood, hear squeals of enemy. Soon pack leader and knight mate are panting. I am panting. Pack leader looks at me, with pride. She looks at me with love. Grasping paw rubs my head. Grasping paw scratches my ears. I smell her. I hear her voice, not bad for breaking, good for defending food.

I am good pack mate.

 

I would die for her, I love her, she is my pack leader, she is my queen.  

 

 


	6. Better Than a Mabari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, in continuing with matching these shorts with the people Kai meets in “The First Cut is Always The Deepest,” Fergus gives us his feelings on his sweet baby sister. I hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. Thank you for the kudos, comments, and traffic! You are all amazing!

When Mother and Father told me that I was going to have a baby brother or a baby sister, I told them I wanted a mabari instead. I remember how they laughed and smiled at me and told me I would love being a big brother. And I didn’t believe them.

I watched our mother’s belly grow and watched as Father paid her more attention rubbing her rounded stomach. And I told them I wanted a mabari. Why couldn’t we get a mabari instead? And Father tickled me and told me that a brother or sister would be better than a mabari. And I didn’t believe him.

And then you showed up, finally, and you were all red, and squalling.And I begged them while plugging my fingers in my ears, couldn’t we please, please, please get a mabari instead? And they smiled and told me you would stop crying and sleeping all the time, and that you would be more fun. And I didn’t believe them.

When you started to make babbling noises and you put my favorite toy soldier in your mouth and you slobbered all over it. I asked Nan; couldn’t we trade you for a mabari? Nan just laughed and chucked me under my chin and told me you would start to talk and walk and I would like you better than a mabari. And I didn’t believe her.

When you started walking and talking I thought it was a disaster. You wanted to follow me everywhere. And you couldn’t say my name right, it came out ‘gus.’ And Mother and Father told me to let you come along, it wouldn’t hurt. And I yelled at them, I wanted a mabari instead! And they frowned at me and told me that despite what I said I loved you more than I would ever love a mabari. And I didn’t believe them.

At the tourney our parents put on for King Maric you climbed into his lap and demanded stories. I thought I wanted to sink into the floor with embarrassment. And when he paid more attention to you, I was jealous. Then the worst came when Maric presented the litter of Mabari puppies from the royal kennels and offered to have one imprint on me. I was so happy; my chest was swelling with pride. We all went to the kennels and they brought the pups one at a time out of the pen. Everyone was watching, to see if a pup would imprint on me.

One by one they were brought out and put it back. And when the last one was brought forward, I thought surely this one! This is the one that will be mine. And the mabari I always wanted leapt past me and jumped up and down in front of my stupid, annoying, baby sister. The mabari I begged for, the one I pleaded for and it went to you! I was so angry! I stalked away; I wanted to get far away from you.

But you followed me, and you called me by that lisped version of my name, and I turned around and told you to leave me alone, that I hated you and your stupid mabari. And I watched those big blue eyes fill with tears, and I wanted to hate you more for crying. Before I could turn to go you patted the mabari and told it to go with me. And when the puppy whined and wouldn’t go to me, you pushed him and shouted at him until he started to whine and cry.  But still you told him to stay with me.

And I realized that you loved me more than a mabari. And in that moment I believed them. I believed all of them, Mother, and Father, and Nan. So through the scraped knees, the cruel teasing of our peers, the illnesses, loves lost you have been my best friend through it all. My beloved little sister, I do love being your big brother, you are far more fun and better than a mabari; and I do love you more. In fact, I have loved you more and more every day since.   Mother, Father, Nan they were all right, and I believe them.

 

 


	7. Infinite Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dairren remembers his childhood friend, putting pen to paper to pour his heart out in words on paper...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns except what I made up. 
> 
> A well-worn leather covered journal, one of many. Later found in one of the guestrooms of Highever castle and carelessly tossed into the fireplace by Arl Howe’s men the morning after Highever falls. The journal falls open on the pile of burning wood at its most recent entry. The words disappear as flames lick the pages, but can be read before they are gone. Gone, like man who wrote them.

I watched her walking up the open corridor to Highever castle. The sunlight made her ebony hair shine the way it does a raven’s wing. She wasn’t looking up; rather she seemed to be lost in thought, a small smile playing on those full rosy lips. When she looked up and saw us all standing with her mother, I thought my heart would catch in my throat.

 

There in the memory of the gangling, long limbed, coltish girl I had left behind, was a woman. An exquisite creature had taken the rag muffin’s place. The girl with tangled hair, scabbed knees and various cuts from learning how to fight had turned into this? Maker!

 

I caught her look of surprise when her eyes rested on me. Those big blue eyes, I had not forgotten their color. They are color of forget-me-nots, or the deep blue of a summer sky, or that brilliant shade of blue of the ice that floats in the Waking Sea by Wintersday. It was those eyes that could see into people and determine their true nature. Eyes that could flash hotter than the lava in the dwarven channels in Orzammar; or eyes that could turn cold and freeze the recipient of that gaze better than any Ferelden winter. The fire showed more often when the other noble’s brats chose to make my life a misery; the ice when my father, the sodding bastard, would belittle me.

 

Oh I hated her in those first few seconds after she had whipped the other noble boys soundly. Bad enough my father thought me a weakling, but to have a one lone girl take them on and defeat them? Ah, but I am ahead of myself.

 

I found a quiet place to read and to write at the palace in Denerim. My father, the git, was busy with the Landsmeet while mother was off drinking to numb herself as usual. But they found me, the bullying nobles’ bastards. They always seemed to find me.

 

First they just tormented me, calling me names, the usual. Of course when I refused to rise to the bait they ripped my writing from my hand, and read it in a mocking manner. Still I refused to let them lure me in. But I found myself unable to resist when they calmly began to tear what I had written into small pieces.

 

Oh I am sure what I had written, at the ripe age of eleven, would have embarrassed me no end should it have survived to be read now; but at the time, it was my world. A world I used to escape my father’s brutish nature and his disappointment in having a son who would rather read and write than learn to use a weapon. A world I used to escape a gentle woman tied to a boor of a man she had been forced to marry, and who still to this day, uses any intoxicant to take herself away from him, and her unhappiness, if only for a little while.

 

These bullies were destroying my world, and I saw red. Of course being angry only helps a small way if the other boys outnumber, outweigh, and can out fight you. I found myself eating grass and dirt soon enough while my ribs were being kicked in as they laughed and taunted me.

 

I remember everything about that day, vividly; how green the grass was the smell of dirt, the feel of the blood as it trickled out of my nose. I remember the silence as they all stopped what they were doing. I thought it was an adult who entered the little garden, and as the hand that held my head ceased pressing my face into the ground, I looked up.

 

I looked up and I had my first glimpse of her. She stood there with her hands on her hips, just staring at them with those sharp cerulean eyes flashing daggers of blue fire. She looked as I imagined the warrior queens of old would have looked facing an enemy, as The Rebel Queen Moira, or Queen Rowan would have looked; fierce, capable, fearless.

 

Her brother stood behind her, but I barely saw him, I only saw her. I remember every detail. I remember the dress she wore, some pink colored, embroidered affair with brown gravy stains on it. She had a dark smudge that marred that elegant little nose, and it matched the smudge on the wide forehead. Two braids that had been used to put her raven curls in order had failed miserably. Wisps of hair framed that rounded roses-and-cream complexion. The ribbon on one braid had slid down and the plait was coming undone. The other was mangled with strands of hair looped or pulled out of the pigtail, as if it had been caught in a rose bush or snagged in branches.

 

I remember how the atmosphere once charged with a malicious glee, turned to one of wariness.  Ballgaire the ringleader of my personal hell and torment said something, I don’t remember what.  The tone, though, I remember that clearly; and the tone said he was afraid. I watched a saucy smirk play along those blossom colored lips while the eyes held flames of anger and retribution.

 

And then it happened, and happened so fast, to this day I have no real idea of how the fight began. I remember her reaching down, and grabbing the hem of the dress and pulling it up and tucking it into the band of the leggings she had on underneath the dress. Instead of little dainty slippers, her feet were encased in a pair of scuffed, scratched, and well-worn boots that had been hidden under the long skirt along with the leggings. I imagine that was how she got away with wearing them despite whoever had dressed her in the frilly little outfit.

 

Then in a blink, she wasn’t in my line of vision anymore, and I was being helped up by a friendly tug on my arm. It was her brother Fergus who had taken me in hand and led me to the wall of the garden where he picked up one apple from the small pile sitting in the grass there. He handed it to me before grabbing one for himself, polishing it on his shirt, and biting into it. I remember his wide grin as he put a hand on my chest and nodded towards the garden when I had said something about helping her.

 

There she was, facing off four boys, with laughter and a grin. Again I felt panic in my throat, and I yelled at her brother to help her. Ballgaire was fifteen, Fergus’s peer, and a big boy for his age.  He was twice her height and he outweighed her by a good number of stone. I knew she was going to get hurt. Fergus laughed, crossed his ankles and leaned against the wall, and told me to watch.

 

And watch I did, as they encircled her, one behind and two on either side as Ballgaire stood before her. She seemed to watch only Ballgaire, but as the others started to close in, one hard booted foot lashed out behind her catching Gwitart square in the face, the sickening sound of a nose being broken lanced through the air, along with his screams as he clapped a hand to his face as blood flowed between his fingers.

 

Lun, to her left, found himself blinded as she whipped her braids in his face as her leg arced around to catch Tremaine in the jaw sending him flying. When Ballgaire started towards her, she sidestepped him neatly putting a foot out to trip him as her hands helped in his forward momentum.

 

Lun tried to grab her long black hair that had come undone from the loose ribbon and use it to his advantage while she was busy with Ballagaire. He yanked it and said something lewd. Despite the pain it must have caused she simply smiled and as she lifted one leg straight up in front of her letting Lun have a taste of her boot leather. He squealed like a pig as blood leaked from his mouth.

 

Ballgaire had picked himself up and closed the distance between him and her. I watched in horror as his big hand curved out towards her connecting with a loud and resounding crack. The force of his blow knocked her backwards and she tumbled to the grass. Again, a strong hand was braced against my chest pinning me in place. I wanted to argue with Fergus, to have him help her.

 

But before the words could even form on my lips, she was picking herself up. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She reached up a delicately fingered hand, wiping the blood away. Then she did something that left me completely speechless, she licked it from her tapered fingertips. Her pink tongue like a cat’s darted out to taste her own blood. Her eyes had turned from fire to ice. The grin she gave Ballgaire had him taking steps backwards. Fergus whispered under his breath, “Uh oh, now he’s done it, poor sod. He’s lucky she doesn’t have her daggers on her.” This statement was punctuated by another crunching bite of apple and a shake of Fergus’ head in apparent sympathy for Ballgaire.

 

I recall how the air seemed to become still, as if the world had inhaled with that pause in between the exhale. She ran forward going into flips which ended in front of Ballgaire who raised his fists defensively waiting for a punch or a kick to the face. The grin she shot him was pure impish malice as her heavy boot caught him right in the stones bringing him to his knees.

 

I heard Fergus draw in a sharp intake of breath and I caught his wince before he took the last bite from the apple in his hand tossing the core to the side under some bushes. He shot me a grin and said, “See, I told you she’d be fine. I would have her in a fight over a mabari any day.” I could only gape at him. He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.

 

I watched as Ballgaire lay on the ground grasping at his loins while making mewling noises. She stepped over him with a tomboyish grace to walk towards us grinning. Fergus returned the smile and bent over to grab an apple from the pile, which he tossed to her. She laughed a musical little giggle that only ten year old girls seem to manage, as she plucked it from the air. She pulled at the remaining ribbon still holding the snagged braid, sliding it off without bothering to untie it, and tossed it to the ground. She untangled the plait, unbinding her hair so it fell in a curtain of soft curls, before she rubbed the apple on her stained and dirty dress front and bit in.  

 

All I could do is stare. I thought they were both mad. I had seen her across the hall in the palace at Landsmeets past. Standing next to her parents and Fergus, Kaidana Cousland, always fidgeting and pulling and pinching at the pretty dresses all the other girls seemed to love to wear. And here she was, whipping four older boys and having the time of her life. My father would have loved her as his son. And that thought made me angry.

 

What happened next didn’t help my mental state either. Lun, Tremaine, and Gwitart must have decided that fleeing was the better part of valor. They were gathering up Ballgaire, who could barely walk, and only bent over at that. She pointed a finger them, “Oi, you right bastards leave him alone from now on you hear? Or the next time I’ll bring my daggers and cut off what you hold dearest, especially you Ballgaire.” And with that she turned back to me with a grin and a wink while taking a big bite out of her apple.

 

“Great, just great!” I yelled at her, watching those blue eyes get wide. “Bad enough my father thinks I am delicate, and that my mother must have slept with the court scribe at one of the Landsmeets.” I stalked across the lawn to gather the pieces of my world while trying to gather the shreds of my dignity, what dignity an eleven year old boy thinks he has at any rate. Both my world and my dignity felt scattered across the bright green grass, “Now I have a girl younger than me, fighting four older boys to save me. Great!  Fabulous! Really, just what I needed, so my father can have it confirmed why I am such a disappointment!”

 

I remember her following me. “Oh, I’m sorry; did you want to eat grass then? I should have seen you were figuring out what it is like to be a Ceffyl, and I suppose Ballgaire and his friends were only helping you practice?” She put her hands on her hips, apple still in one hand.

 

I threw up my hands and yelled at her, “You don’t understand! How could you possibly understand what it’s like to...”

 

She stalked over to me, “To never fit in? To have all these people around you who throw scorn at you just for being who you are? To feel as if they all fit into this world while you don’t?”

 

Again those blue, blue eyes looked into mine. “Other girls were playing with dolls, and all I ever wanted to do is learn to fight. They worry about their hair, and their clothes, and their stupid little shoes. In case you hadn’t noticed I don’t have many friends. None, to be blunt, except my brother Fergus.” She stopped for a moment and looked down at her shoes her shoulders slumped momentarily, but straightened again as she shook her head, “And he is my best friend. So, I am luckier than you, I’ll admit it. I have loving parents, who encourage me to be who I am. And I have Fergus.” She waved at her brother who had come up behind her.

 

“So, how about this? I offer my friendship, to you, the person you are, as the person I am. And as a bonus, I will throw in Fergus and my parents. But think quickly, this is a onetime only offer, good until I finish my apple!”  She grinned and took a bite, crunching slowly, while she held out her other hand. “Your father is a prat by the by. Why you would give a tinker’s damn what he thinks of you, I have no idea.” I couldn’t help it I burst out laughing. She was right.

 

I looked at that hand, dirty, and sticky with juice from the apple. There were scrapes and scratches, some old, some new. The fingers were long and delicate, tapering gently to pink fingernails brown with dirt underneath them. I wanted to hold on to that hand, and never let go. Instead I found my own hand pumped in a strong callused grip and she tossed the apple core away with a grin. Fergus smiled and held out his hand as well.

 

They helped me gather the scraps of parchment we could find. Fegus went to gather the apples left in their pile. Kai then un-tucked the hem of the dress to hide her boots and leggings once again only to find that the dress had been torn rather badly in the fight, “Bloody hell!  Nan is going to kill me! Damn and blast!”

 

“And both Mother and Nan will kill you, after Nan washes your mouth out with soap for using such language as that.” Fergus grinned at her, and I could only gaze in amazement at this girl with a mouth like a castle soldier.

 

“Only if they were here to hear it, or you rat me out, brother dear.” And I loved the way she wrinkled up her smudged little nose and stuck out her tongue. I found myself cataloguing everything about her.

 

Fergus laughed and tugged on her hair, “Not with all the things you have on me little sister.”

 

“Oh, do you mean Ori-an-a?” Her voice sing-songed the name as she laughed and danced nimbly out of her brother’s reach when he too laughed and went to grab her, dropping the apples.

 

I bent over to gather the dropped fruit while they chased each other around the lawn. When I rose up I saw we had company. Prince Cailan, as he was at the time, stood leaning against the wall with an amused smile on his face. He was eighteen and slightly skinnier then than now, but he had the same youthful expression.

 

I coughed, to get their attention, and they stopped running around to look first at me, then in the direction I was staring. To my surprise, though I shouldn’t have been really, she didn’t get flustered or try and smooth out her hair or her dress. In fact, she acted as nonplussed as you please, giving the smallest of bows in Cailan’s direction before turning to Fergus and myself and nodding towards the exit.

 

Fergus took the apples from me as I was carrying my stack of parchment and ink bottle and quill. Kai started past the prince with a slight nod of her head, regal as any queen might give. I felt my face flushing as I followed her, giving him a bow. His voice caused us to stop in our tracks, “Those apples look so familiar. You wouldn’t happen to know where they came from would you?

 

I watched as she turned back towards the prince coming to stand in front of him. She cocked a coal colored eyebrow and smiled sweetly, “Why they come from the market place, for all you know your majesty. Or did the castle gardener brand the apples from the orchard here?”

 

I felt my stomach flip over. She had just admitted to stealing from the palace grounds, well not really but she implied it. Cailan just laughed out loud, “Well if that were the case, I would have been in trouble with Timotheus for climbing his precious trees and stealing the fruit there myself.  I used to take some back to my room for a late night snack, you see. He is very protective of his arboreal charges.” Cailan’s smile widened, “He also would have had my fingers for stealing from his strawberry patch, and his blackberries, and his...well you get the idea.”

 

Cailan winked, “I also hope that you were not too badly injured in your fight with those miscreants, my lady.” His smile got wider as he reached for one of the apples that Fergus held, “May I?”

 

Fergus grinned and handed him one, “Kai is tough, my lord, they didn’t stand a chance.”

 

“Cailan, please, not my lord, or my lord prince. I get enough of that.” He waved a hand and bit into the apple, talking with his mouth full, “And I don’t doubt, my lady, here is a scrapper if the state of those boys was anything to go by when they passed me. One seemed to be in a permanent bow.” He laughed.

 

“I am afraid my foot and his stones connected in a rather unfortunate way... for him that is.”  Kai grinned at him.

 

“Glorious, my lady!” Cailan burst into laughter.

 

“If you call me my lady, I shall call you my lord prince! Kai, alright, not Kaidana either.  I get enough of that from being in trouble!”

 

Under his breath Fergus muttered, “Which is all the time!”  That earned him a swift elbow in the ribs but without her breaking her gaze from Cailan.

 

I watched her lips form in an impish grin at our prince. “And how did you know it was me, and not say, Dairren or Fergus who trounced them soundly?”

 

Her statement brought on more laughter as Cailan produced a handkerchief with which he gently wiped the side of her face where blood had dried. She smiled wider and shrugged, to which he laughed harder, and exclaimed “Glorius!” After which he then asked her, “Would you all like me to show you the best strawberry patches?”  And with that Cailan put a hand on her shoulder and mine, nodded to Fergus and we left the alcove.

 

I remembered that day whenever my father was cruel, which was often. It sustained me until I could see her again. It sustained me when my mother fell into the abyss of alcohol to escape.

 

Kai was as good as her word. She became my best friend and her brother too. Books, poetry, writing she loved it all as much as I did. She could speak in complete sentences and read by the time she was two, just like me. I found we had so much in common. She must have spoken to her parents, because my mother and I were invited to come to Highever whenever we wished, and Lady Eleanor became my mother’s best and only true friend.  

 

The memory of that day sustained me the night my father tried to hit my mother when she finally told him how miserable he made her, it was the first, and last, time I ever heard her raise her voice. I stepped in to stop him, the blow broke my cheekbone. And I packed my mother up and took her to Highever that night. I was fifteen then. I’ll never know what her father said to mine, but Bryce Cousland assured me that my father would never touch my mother like that again.  And I stayed at Highever while he used the connections of his soon to be daughter-in-law’s family to get me into the University in Antiva.

 

That memory, more than any other sustained me while I adjusted to my new life, and it sustained me through the years of hard study. It was that memory that drove me to learn how to be a warrior, like she is. I wanted to come back to her, with that memory in my mind. I wanted to show the only friend I ever had, that she was my defining influence, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to blurt out that memory to her, and tell her that I have been in love with her since that day, even if I didn’t always know it.

 

When I saw her coming up that walkway, my throat closed on those words. I couldn’t say them; I had a moment of panic, what if she never felt the way I did? She was so much more to me, than I could have ever been to her. Yet when her eyes kept looking into mine, those beautiful azure pools, staring into my soul, as they did so long ago, she did not look away.

 

My heart beat faster, when she impishly told her mother of rats in the larder. And my breath caught as she bit her lip trying not to laugh at my embarrassment when my mother was talking to her about marrying me. And I saw the girl from that memory when she rolled her eyes and blushed at her own mother’s comments. And my stomach did a flip when she told me I was handsome. I thought my heart would stop altogether when she asked if we might speak alone.

 

I tried to hide my nervousness as I stood in what I assumed was the Teyrn's office by the multiple stacks of paperwork lying about the desk. No children allowed in this room without an adult, we had been told so long ago.

 

To my surprise, though I shouldn’t have been, she came to me there. I wanted to blurt out my feelings, the treasure, the gift she had given me, but I didn’t. Instead I said the first thing that I almost always thought of... books. The collection, whose was it?  Her grandfather’s and she came there often to read. I found myself fascinated, I knew which books had been her favorites when she was fourteen, before I left for Antiva, but I had no idea what the exquisite creature before me liked. It had been almost six years after all.

 

I found myself cataloging everything about her again. Her scent, the way her hair fell across her neck in soft curls, the tattoo on her face that hadn’t been there when I had left, but which I found strangely erotic. I noted the way she blushed when I agreed with her that the book by Brother Timeous was fascinating. Then she brought up the Grey Wardens, I must admit to being excited by the prospect of one in the castle and I noted so was she. But I wondered if it might not be a distraction on her part as she was flushing charmingly once again.

 

I found myself being aroused by her on so many levels, that I felt that old insecurity rising up. I told her the Grey Wardens would never take me. As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted it. This woman needed a man, not an insecure little boy. I felt myself blushing and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

 

Instead, the girl from that long ago memory grabbed my arm and told me I should ask this Duncan fellow to test me as he was going to be at Ostagar for the battle. Instead of testing to be a Grey Warden, all I could think about was that hand; now clean, and devoid of dirt and sticky juice of an apple, but with same tapered fingers and delicate pink nails. I couldn’t think of anything but how it would feel to have that hand on my body touching me, or those nails running along my back.

 

I was broken from my less than gentlemanly musings when she began to blush a brilliant pink and removed her hand so quickly from my arm that the cloth was snagged slightly. Was she actually suffering from the same sensual thoughts?

 

I cast about for something to fill in the awkward moment of silence but as always, her quicker wit beat me to it. She asked me if I was riding out with her father tomorrow. I told her that I was, and since the arl’s men were delayed I had no idea when that would be. I mentioned being her father’s squire, caring for his horse, and armor... but I was taken with thoughts of writing as a historian, about the battle and presenting it her bound in leather for her to read.

 

She must have heard the wistfulness in my voice and mistaken it for something else. Fighting as a hero knight perhaps, as her next question seemed to be of that nature. She asked me if I would actually fight. I admit I felt flattered when her face looked stricken at the thought. Was she actually worried about my well-being?

 

I used my soldier and hero tone of voice and told her the darkspawn were an enemy worthy of defeat. To my utter delight the girl from my cherished memory came back to me. She teased me about doing menial tasks for her father. And I teased her about having to stay behind at the castle and not riding alongside her brother. She stuck out her tongue and wrinkled her nose like she used to do. And I thought my heart would burst with joy, while another part of me wanted nothing more than to nibble on that pink tongue. And when her voice got husky as she told me she really wanted to go to Ostagar, I wanted to plaster my lips to hers, and I found myself stepping closer.

 

Again the thought of recording it all, just for her, always for her, came to my mind. It was as close as I could come to telling her what I really felt for her. I was so afraid she would reject me. So I told her I would gladly record the battle even if my skills in writing might be lacking. I felt the blush creeping up my neck, and I had to look away from those eyes. Yet, I found myself drawn closer to her.

 

What she said next only made me love her more. She doubted that my writing skills were lacking, given I was always reading, my nose in a book, and how she enjoyed my company because of that. I returned in kind, telling her she always had her nose in a book when she wasn’t beating the other children soundly for their treatment of me. It was as close to mentioning that memory as I could get. All I could see were those rosy lips, and how much wanted them to cover mine.

 

A cough from my mother’s beautiful but damnable lady-in-waiting stopped me from doing exactly what I had been thinking. Kai looked as disappointed as I felt by the interruption, and her words both astonished me and elated me. She wanted to get re-acquainted, to get to know me, I found it even more enduring that she was as undone as I, and seemed to be casting about for some way to...Maker’s breath, was she really going to ask me to see her, in an intimate fashion?

 

My stupid brain stuttered and stalled, so I fell back on banter. Discussing books I asked her? And my fingers moved of their own accord, Maker I swear it, and stirred one of those silken locks laying on the creamy skin of her neck. Blessed Andraste help me! I seemed to have no control over myself! My voice came as if from far away, “Any books in particular?”

 

I watched that pink tongue, that same tongue that had licked blood off her fingertips when she was ten, circle her top lip. I wanted to groan, was room hotter than before? I could swear it was, especially when I recognized that impish glint in her eyes as she told me she wished to discuss "The Art of Passionate Love" by Brother Capria.

 

I gave a feeble response about it being banned by the Chantry. All my thoughts on being a well-schooled, disciplined man left me, and I felt like an eleven year old boy again, as I stuttered and blushed at the thought of the book that held the very things in it that I wanted to do with her, to her, for her. How did she manage to do that? I stammered that I hadn’t read it (a lie, The university in Antiva had had multiple copies in all the languages of Thedas. It was Antiva after all).

 

When she offered to show me what she had learned from it, especially knowing what was in it, I was almost completely undone; torn as I was between lust and a sense of chivalry. I stammered something about her demonstrating it right there? And I sounded like a complete ass. She had managed to get the upper hand once again. My ears were burning.

 

She smiled and gave a low throated chuckle that had me wanting to lay her across the desk despite Iona, my mother’s handmaiden standing not four feet away. She pointed out said audience, and the rather public nature of our locale as making that a bad idea. And I thought my ear might just catch on fire with the heat rising in them.

 

I would have gladly gone anywhere with her right then, if my overwhelming sense of duty, drilled into me at university, had not stopped me. I could not insult Bryce and Eleanor Cousland by not showing to dinner with them. Not the people who had made my escape from my father possible.

 

When I told her so, I thought surely this would be it. I would not see her again unless I returned from battle. But I had to tell her something of what I felt. I leaned in close so only she could hear, and I told her I would be expected shortly and I didn’t want to take a short time with her. That I had missed her, and I had. I couldn’t tell her then that what I really wanted was a lifetime. I knew that, at that moment, but I couldn’t say it, not yet. It wasn’t the place or the time. I felt my heart sinking, knowing I would go to dinner, my thoughts full of her, only to ride out the next morning.

 

I thought I would fall over dead, my heart having stopped, when she looked at me with those sky colored eyes and asked me to come to her room after supper, to give me books for my journey of course. I managed not to stumble (only just) and told her I would be delighted to come by after dinner before I leaned in close (which was worth it just to breathe in her unique scent once again) and let her know it would be after everyone had gone to bed. And loudly again I mentioned my thanks as she had such great taste in books.

 

My heart was beating so fast, and to keep myself from putting my lips shamelessly to hers, I grasped her hand. I took her palm and entwined her lovely tapered fingers with mine, and again, like so long ago, I wanted to hold on to it  and never let it go. I felt a reassuring return of pressure and I thought my heart would explode in elation. Instead I managed to raise that glorious set of fingers and brush the silken skin of her knuckles with my lips.

 

Her flush was delightful, and she told me she would see me tonight. Her eyes lit up to match the smile. My heart skipped a beat. I told her I looked forward to it, and I meant it. Oh Maker, how I meant it.

 

So I am writing this in my journal that memory from so long ago, about the only and best friend I ever had. I want to write it here, because I am no longer that little boy, and she is no longer that little girl. And I am to go to war, riding with her father on the morrow. And I am going to make a new memory, tonight, one that will sustain me in battle, so I can come home to her again. A memory for the man and the woman we are now. A memory to keep me, in the dark places I will walk, until I can come back to her and we can make many more memories together, she and I, to sustain us both when we are old. Maker let it be so.  

 

 


	8. Aunties & Dragons & Dire Bunnies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Oren's turn to tell about his "auntie" and via him, even old Aldous gets in a word or two. Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. 
> 
> A piece of parchment with a childish scrawl filled with backwards ‘s’s and ‘r’s. There are doodles of what looks like swords, bunnies with big fangs, and fire breathing dragons. There are also comments on the essay by Aldous.

Oren Cousland

 

 

                                           ~My Auntie~   (Actually my boy, she is your aunt, not your “auntie.” or you could call her by her proper name, even by her nickname , if you must, but only if you must)

My auntie Kai is the best auntie in the world. ( Hm, now that you mention the world, remind me to pull out a map for a geography lesson) Old Aldous always says I should describe things, unless it is dire bunnies or dragons. Then he says not to, he gets tired of hearing about them. (My dear boy, not everything can be about bunnies and dragons. And there is no such creature as a “dire bunny, “with big sharp pointy teeth.) My auntie and I look alike, I mean, she is a girl and I am a boy, so we don’t look alike, alike. I mean she has black hair and blue eyes like me. (Oren, your auntie, drat! Your aunt was born before you, so you look like her, not the other way around.)

 

My auntie fights better than any boy. She knows how to fight with daggers and without them too. (You mean unarmed combat, my lad. She knows how to fight in unarmed combat.) My papa says she is the best fighter in Highever, even better than him! I don’t know about that, my daddy is the greatest man ever, besides Grandpapa Bryce of course. (Oren, this essay is to be about your auntie {this is crossed out}, about your aunt Kai, we can certainly discuss an essay about your father and grandfather. Maybe even your great-grandfather, hm, a history lesson on the Couslands, excellent!) But if papa says it’s true, then it is. He never lies. Neither does my auntie. She tells the truth and makes people mad sometimes. Grandmama Eleanor says that Auntie needs to learn diplimacy.  (Lad, the word is diplomacy, and yes, your auntie {again the word is crossed out with two lines this time} aunt Kai could certainly practice it a little more often, especially where the other nobles are concerned.)

 

But I love my auntie best for how she holds me upside down and tickles me. I love her best for when she helps me give my vegatables to Argus so I can have dessert, even though vegatables are icky and I am supposed to eat them anyways. (Oren my lad, it is vegetables, and they are not icky. If you must describe them, say they taste horrid, wretched, or they are distasteful. And I don’t mean you shouldn’t eat them! Your Auntie {the word is crossed out again} aunt really shouldn’t be abetting your disobedience. Honestly! She is as incorrigible now as she was when she was your age!  Look that word up, lad) I love her when she does tricks while riding on the back of her Ceffyl. And when she takes me riding and we go real fast. I love her best when she sneaks us into the orchard and she helps me climb the trees so we can steal apples. Or when we sneak strawberries from the kitchen gardens, and skip lessons, and go read under a tree eating them. (Well that would explain your disappearance the same day Nan had a fit that she did not have enough strawberries for the pies she was making.) I love her best because she takes me swimming and because she showed me how to whistle. I love her best because she has snuck me out after bedtime to teach me the stars in the sky, or so we can catch fireflies, or sneak sticky buns and milk from the larder. (It is a wonder with you two miscreants that Nan does not quit, really!  Oh and look that word up too, get your auntie {this word is crossed out with a harsh line}, blast it! Get your Aunt Kai to help you look it up!)

 

 

I love her because she does all of those things, but I love her best, because she loves me best, just the way I am. She tells me never to be anybody else, but me. She says that I am special, and never beliebe anyone else if they tell me differant. That is why my auntie is one of the best people in the whole world! (I would have to agree, your aunt is certainly her own person. And she is right lad, never be anyone but who you are. Your aunt is a remarkable young woman, and one of the best students I ever had the privilege to teach, despite her insouciance. Have your auntie, {this word is almost obliterated from the page} blast it again!  Have your Aunt Kai help you look that up too. And it is believe and different, my lad! I need a nap.)

 

 


	9. Like a Fine Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai's sister-in-law gives her impressions of her. I hope you enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. Thanks for reading, kudos, comments, and your support!

I stand here watching my sister-in-law tease her brother, my beloved husband, their banter flying back and forth. I have to admit, when I was younger I was jealous of their close friendship. I confess to trying to steal him away from her. Though that was a ridiculous thing for me to do, and it would have failed miserably at any rate. But ah young love, and jealousy, it makes one a little mad.

 

I remember the deep and painful crush I had on Fergus then. And though I spent most of my childhood traveling around Ferelden with my father the wine merchant, so much so I could barely speak Antivan, I was still considered a foreigner by the nobles’ children. So when Fergus returned my interest, I was happy beyond belief, but less than thrilled that his baby sister was always around.

 

Kaidana Cousland, with her hair always in a state of disorder, her clothes, her face, her hands were always filthy. Her habit of dressing like a boy (even wearing leggings under the dresses she was made to wear), and a mouth like a castle soldier, with a penchant for mischief.

 

I thought she was a bad influence on Fergus back then. He was going to be the Teyrn of Highever one day. He did not need to be following some miscreant around the Palace gardens stealing from our king.

 

I remember the night at the palace where our families all gathered for the Landsmeet. My father was there doing business, having the Royal Warrant, as the official Vinter of the royal line of Ferelden. What better place to sell more fine spirits to the nobles, than when they were all gathered under one roof, and squiffy from drink? Fergus and I had a huge argument about his scamp of a sister no less. She had been caught rubbing one of the other noble girl’s face and hair in a mud puddle at the very public market square earlier that day. It was an embarrassment to me back then. I stuck my nose up in the air when he defended her, and stormed out of the great hall where everyone was gathered.

 

I turned the corner, intending to go to my rooms in the palace, only to be grabbed and shoved up against the castle wall. It was Ballagaire, Bann Parnell’s son, his big clumsy hands pressing my back into the stone.

 

I demanded he let me go and he laughed and tried to kiss me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he slobbered all over me like some mabari. I was repulsed. I tried to shove him away and he ripped the shoulder off my dress, told me all Antivan women were whores, and he was just doing what we all did anyway. Then he proceeded to bite my neck and shoulder, and as I was about to yell for help I heard a quiet voice behind me.

 

“Andraste’s ass Ballgaire, get yourself to The Pearl! At least the women there would get paid to put up with your sorry arse. That is if Sanga, Old Matrell’s replacement, would even let you in the door. Perhaps it’s best you go to your room and practice a little self-love, or does your hand turn you down too?”

 

And there she stood, her black hair lit by moonlight from behind. She was tapping her booted foot on the stones, with her arms crossed. She had a grin on her face, but her blue eyes had a hard glint that showed in the light of the torch hanging in the wrought iron bracket set in the wall.

 

I shivered at the look she was giving the brute, who was either too stupid or too blind to see. I watched her walking closer, stalking him like a cat does a bird.

 

“Har, har, go away brat! The Antivan chit and I were having some fun, and you’re too young to join in.” And he started sucking on my neck again, while his hand grabbed my breast. I tried pushing him off but he pinned my hands.

 

What happened next occurred so quickly I didn’t even see her move. One minute I am being groped and slobbered on, the next... I’m watching my then future sister-in-law with a hand on Ballgaire’s throat as he lay on the ground, while placing a sharp and wicked looking dagger between his legs.

 

“I would rather douse myself with lye, or set myself on fire. But I’m sure you get that a lot.” I watched her grin wider at him.

 

“You little twat, I am going to...” Whatever he had been going to say was cut off in a grunt as those long tapered fingers squeezed harder.

 

“Ah Ballagaire, I am so, so tempted to cut it off, and I am mean all of it off. Along with that little head between your legs you use to do your thinking with. Make me too angry Ballgaire, and I will make you squat like a girl to pee.” Her hand squeezed harder and I watched his face turning purple before she released her fingers, stood up, and stepped back.

 

Ballgaire rolled on his belly and crawled on all fours away from Kai as fast as he could, given that he was coughing like an old man. She walked over to me while keeping an eye on Ballgaire, “Are you all right?”  

 

I remember just nodding, staring at her in amazement. It could have been much worse, so much worse than a torn dress. She smiled and nodded. Ballgaire had apparently collected himself enough to stand and to get his bluster back, “You little trumped up... turnip!  Wait until you are alone and I have...”  

 

“Wait until what Bull Calf? Until you have the Three Weasels with you? Oh please do fetch them. Explain why you didn’t invite them to your fun, and how you got your arse handed to you on a platter by me.” She gave him a devilish little grin that was all ice and snow, “I would love to know what Lun, Gwitart, and Tremaine would think of their fearless leader then.” Ballgaire’s face got redder, “I am sure King Maric would love to hear what you were doing as well, or maybe my brother?” Ballgaire’s went from red to white at this.

 

“You...” He stammered.

 

“You what: you strumpet, you chit, you brat? Believe me any insult you hurl is a compliment considering the source. Don’t worry, I won’t have to tell anyone Bull Calf, please bring the weasels and we can have a second dance.” She all but purred this out at him, and I had to keep from laughing, “I look forward to it, though I assure you, you won’t.” Then she twirled the dagger in her fingers letting the blade flash in the torchlight. Ballgaire’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Now run along, Rosie Palms and her five fat sisters still might give you a go back in your room, stranger things have happened.” Bellagaire flushed a brilliant shade of crimson and turned on his heel and left.

 

I had to put my hand to my mouth, part of me wanted to laugh hysterically, in part due to adrenaline I was sure, the other part because of her. In that moment, I understood why Fergus loved her so. I found her grabbing my arm and leading me quickly to the bedrooms while talking to me, “Let’s get you out of that dress and into something not sullied by that bastard. And I would recommend not telling my hot blooded brother. He is a still lake of water that runs deep. He might find himself in a duel. And I would rather not have him banished from Ferelden for killing someone who the better half of him ran down his father’s leg.”

 

It was this statement that had me laughing so hard I could hardly walk and hold up my dress. “Kaidana Cousland, really! I will hardly be able to stand if you keep that up!” I recall passing by guards as we walked the hallways to the guest rooms. They would stare at us and then Kai would put her hand as if she was holding a cup and knock it back then winking and nodding at me. “They are going to think I am inebriated!”

 

“Better that then they look too closely at the welts on your neck and your torn gown and ask questions.” Kai grinned at me, “Unless that’s what you want?”

 

I giggled again while shaking my head. We made it to the gracious suite of rooms given to us by the King, and she popped her head inside, bid me wait, and came back a moment later to pull me in the room. “Lucky you, no one’s here not even your lady-in-waiting. I suggest you peel off that dress, and burn it. Or at the very least, give it away to a servant.”

 

I nodded and led her to my room. She helped me dig through the chests, but I found I was too tired to want to go back and pretend nothing had happened. So she helped me unlace the dress and as I was getting into my nightgown and my robe she bundled up the gown and disappeared.  I was on the bed about to drift off when she returned with a grin. I never did find out what she did with the garment, but whatever it was, I was happy never to see it again.

 

I found myself astounded looking at the girl who had climbed up on the bed beside me. Her dress had hiked up revealing scuffed heavy leather boots and deerskin leggings.“Kaidana, I ...”

 

She waved a dismissive hand, “I know you like my brother a great deal, and he likes you great deal. I don’t know if you have noticed his dopey face whenever you’re around.”

 

I giggled, “Well I do, like him. He is different than the other noble boys. He doesn’t look down on me for being born in Antiva, or for not being from one of the noble families. He loves books and poetry...” I found myself flushing and looking down.

 

“I know, I was following you because I heard your fight, about me. I wasn’t about to let my brother lose the only girl he liked because of his stupid baby sister.” Kai grinned a rueful grin, “I figure my brother has sacrificed a lot because of me. All of my parent’s affections, a mabari...” She picked at the bedclothes, “I was coming after you to apologize for dunking Brina’s head into that mud puddle, even if she did deserve it for slapping her elven servant and calling her a ‘knife ear.’ And that I promised to try and behave myself, at least in public, and not embarrass you by getting into any fights; if you would just give my dopey brother a chance.”

 

This time I burst out laughing so hard my eyes filled with tears and my ribs hurt, and she joined me. Finally it died down to snorts and occasional twitters, "In Antiva a woman fighting in battle would be... unthinkable." And I grinned and started to laugh again.

 

“Well, my pet,” She said with a grin, “You aren’t in Antiva anymore!” And we both started all over again.

 

 

It became our running joke, she and I. She gave me that little dagger with the sheath to put in my bodice. And she showed me a few fighting moves. We never did tell Fergus, it was our secret, a moment of bonding. I have never challenged her and Fergus’s relationship ever again.

 

Since I am the daughter of a purveyor of fine wines and spirits, my father Ricardo is fond of comparing people to wines. I find myself likening my sister-in-law (like the sister I never had really) to a fine Antivan wine. A Syrah I think, a wine that would hold aromas and flavors of wild black fruits (like the brambly and prickly blackberry), with overtones of black pepper spice and a hints of leather. She has the characteristic of that vitage: bold, complex, bright, deep, supple and up front.

 

She became my friend, closer than any of those other nobles’ daughters. A true friend to me, who understood my often dry sense of humor, she is my best friend, and my husband’s. And she is so very good to our son. I hope I have a daughter next, just like her aunt. I am standing here looking at my sister-in-law, the light from the window brightening up her and Oren’s coal black heads as they are bent together, plotting to steal Nan’s strawberries again, no doubt. Or sneak out after his bedtime to catch fireflies, or count the stars. And I find myself praying to the Maker, I hope I have a daughter in the coming months, just like her aunt.


	10. Rememberences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor and Bryce take a trip back in time remembering their daughter Kai, growing up, and ponder her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
> 
> I wanted to have Bryce and Eleanor’s together.
> 
> Again, sorry for the long times between posts, real life got really real when my dad got cancer and passed away. Please forgive me.

“Oh look Bryce!” Eleanor Cousland held up a slightly stained, faded, and well worn baby’s blanket. The color is a moss green and it is worn through in some places. “Remember how Nan searched amongst the market stalls for the ‘perfect yarn’, as she called it? “Eleanor looked at her husband as he sat beside her on the bed and reached out to finger the soft weave of thread.

Bryce Cousland remembered it well. But what he remembered even more was his beloved daughter using the blanket to dress up Argus, or to swing from her bedpost; or using it as a tent with twigs for the poles, when she had snuck out one night (and probably many more times they didn’t know about) to watch fireflies in the garden.

He watched as Eleanor pulled out a pair of small little doeskin leather slippers, made in Orlais. They were a gift from Oriana’s father, he had acquired them on one of his travels for spirits to bring back for the royal court. 

Eleanor held them up, fingering the little bow, and the beads and the little charms of puppies that were attached. Bryce found them garish and horrid, but he would never tell his Elle that, “Oh Bryce remember when her feet were this small. She was two, remember how she toddled along in them. And here is the little dress that went with it!” He watched as his wife delved once more into the chest of keepsakes coming back up and holding out a little monstrosity that was an exact miniature of the fancy dresses worn at court by Orlesian noble women at the time. It was all bows, and layers of lace and toile and velvet.

Bryce remembered well, how Kai had been dressed up in those awful shoes and that awful dress and how she had screamed when they had done so. He also remembered how they had shown her off at some salon with all the nobles there and how not five minutes after they had put her down they began to hear gasps run throughout the crowd, as they all turned to look at something. That ‘something’ had turned out to be his fierce girl, sitting on the buffet table, naked but for swaddling clothes. Cake and icing were liberally smeared all over her face, her hair, and her front and up her nose; as she had helped herself to a big handful (from the back of the cake, she said). The dress and the shoes had been thrown into the punch bowl, “Pity she won’t wear things like this now.” Bryce found he had to stifle a laugh.

Eleanor must have taken his smile for agreement as she reached into the chest’s interior once again. She came up with three daggers and a small leather collar. The one dagger was full sized and had gems in it, and was fit for a king, and had belonged to one, King Maric. The other two were well made and finely crafted daggers out of wood, made to fit his daughter’s four year old hands. The collar had been Argus’s, her mabari’s, as a puppy. 

 

“Bryce remember when we held that tourney here for Maric to celebrate his birthday. To try and cheer him up after Rowan’s death. Remember how much he fell in love with Kaidana?” Bryce nodded, though he was thinking not how the king had come to love his daughter, but that the man almost had no choice when his bold little Pup had jumped up in the king’s lap and demanded stories. He remembered how she had told Maric, in that little girl lisp, that he was handsome. How she had played with the king’s long blond hair or the buttons on his surcoat, until she had seen the dagger at his hip. 

Bryce remembered how she had demanded the king show the blade to her, and how Maric had smiled (thank the Maker) and not been insulted in the least by her brazen demand. He had not only let her hold it but the king had taken her to the weaponsmith of Highever town and had the man make her a set of wooden practice daggers out of oak to fit her little hands. And Maric had taken her to the practice yard every morning before the rest of the castle had woken and taught her how to use them. And when the king left, the fancy dagger had been left behind with a note explaining that it was for his little friend, Kai.

The puppy collar was of course from the mabari that was supposed to imprint on Fergus. But the pup had gone for Kai instead. Bryce never knew what happened with that incident. His son had stormed out, always a little jealous of his sister, the usurper for his parent’s full attention, and Bryce had been sure that this would make the rift wider. But it had only cemented the relationship between his son and daughter after that. They had been as thick as thieves ever since (and sometimes real thieves of apples, and strawberries he knew). 

Eleanor set the daggers and collar in Bryce’s lap before reaching into the treasury of memories at her feet. “Oh Bryce look at this, her first portrait! She was six, you hired that painter, Elric, wasn’t it?” She held up the portrait with outstretched arms giving it a critical eye. Even from his position Bryce could see it was a little blurry as if the painter had painted, then re-painted many times, never quite fixing the subject where he wanted it. 

“I must say, he was supposed to be the best, but he really didn’t seem to capture her very well.” And again Bryce had to stifle a laugh as Eleanor handed him the painting so she could rummage once more. He remembered how the poor artist had come to his study in a state. The hapless man had been beside himself. He had been running his hands through his hair so hard Bryce had been sure he was going to pull it all out. The painter apologized, but informed the Teyrn that he could no longer continue to paint his daughter. She simply would not sit still! And it wasn’t just that! She kept making faces. The man explained that to paint his daughter would require that she be tied and gagged, or asleep, which would hardly do for any portrait to hang on the castle wall. Elric handed Bryce the portrait and grabbed his bags which had been packed, the man was ready to leave right then, without payment. Bryce allowed himself a smile, he paid the man more than his original commission, and told him to consider it ‘battle pay.’ 

This time Bryce watched his wife put a black braid of hair, tied at each end with ribbon, too her nose, “Oh it still had that little girl smell, like sunshine and grassy meadows!’ She handed it to him as well as the sheaf of two papers she held in her hand, “And her first essay complete with illustration for Aldous.” Eleanor laughed and bent to her task again.

Bryce snuck a sniff of the thick braid, and it did indeed still smell of grass and sunshine. Probably because Kai had snuck off from lessons with Aldous to the orchard to steal apples, and she had used the dagger Maric had given her to hack off the very braid he held in his hands. The hair had caused Eleanor no amount of distress as they were to go to Denerim for a Landsmeet in a few days time, and Kai’s hair had just grown out from the the paste she had gotten all stuck in it, only to have it all cut off short as her brother’s, a few months before. 

The essay had been done that night in her room as penance for skipping lessons and cutting her hair. It was supposed to be an essay about proper rules of behavior. And since no one had told his fierce girl which rules for which type of behavior; she had taken it upon herself to write on the proper rules and behaviors for a knight in honorable combat. Bryce flipped the first page of the parchment filled with the childish scrawl of the essay itself (complete with Aldous’s notes), and looked at the illustration. It had a series of two pictures side by side showing the right and wrong way for a knight to do battle against a foe; replete with blood, dismembered limbs, severed heads, and even one fellow with an eyeball dangling at an unfortunate angle. 

Bryce looked up from the pictures (which were really quite good for a six year old) when he heard a rattling noise and he turned to find his wife holding a ceramic bottle with a cork stopper, “Her baby teeth!” Eleanor clasped them to her chest and then handed the bottle to him. He opened it up see a thin leather cord looped near the top. He pulled it and the necklace with one small little slightly yellowed tooth attached to it. He had to grin. Kai had lost her first baby tooth in her first (of many) fights with one of other nobles’ children. The incisor had a hole drilled through it (Bryce suspected Fergus of aiding Kai in this) and it had been strung on leather and Kai had worn it around her neck as a badge of honor. At least she had worn it when her mother couldn’t see it. 

Bryce carefully stuffed the tooth and the leather cord back into the bottle, putting the cork stopper back in it and setting it beside him on the bed. He looked to see Eleanor holding a yellowed, malformed lump of something, “I remember her and Nan creating this soap together. The day she brought her first cake of it, after it was done aging, as a present for me. I hadn’t the heart to use this her first. It was also the first night I didn’t have to struggle to get her to take a bath.” Eleanor grinned and sniffed the soap before handing it over. 

Bryce remembered how she had crawled into his lap in his study, covered in soap making ingredients. She had told him how she wanted to make a soap that smelled like Argus, and when Nan had put the kibosh on that, how she wanted to smell like an apple pie. She had told him how she and Nan had compromised, how proud she was that she had, and that she couldn’t wait to take Mamae the first cake of it. He remembered she fell asleep in his lap while he worked on paperwork. 

He barely had time to set it down before Eleanor was opening a wooden box in which rested two small and exquisitely made daggers. Bryce watched Eleanor run her fingers over their well worn handles, “Remember that Landsmeet when she was ten? Maric presented these to her in private. He had ‘missed his little friend’, he said.” 

Bryce remembered how Maric, like at Highever, had taken Kai and Fergus to the practice yard every morning. He also remembered her fight with one of the Banns’s daughters and how he had been grateful that Maric had not given her the set until the next day. He also remembered leaving strict instructions with Nan not to let her carry them out of the room save with Maric the whole time they were there. He was glad he did. He had no idea what would have happened at that fight with Ballgaire, Lun, Tremaine, and Gwitart if she had worn those daggers that day. 

Eleanor started to close the lid on the box but stopped and reached inside to find something tucked away amongst the daggers. She pulled it out to find a medallion on a black silk ribbon. She held it up for Bryce to see. The medallion bore the face of King Maric, given to the noble’s families at the ceremonial funeral for the king. Since the man had been lost at sea, they had had no body to commit to the flames. The funeral coincided with a Landsmeet where they tried to make Bryce take the throne. He had refused of course. Cailan was the rightful heir, and while young and inexperienced, Bryce felt it his duty to support the man. 

Bryce reached out a finger to touch the medallion, “I remember she clutched this to her while wearing the only dress I never heard her complain about wearing. That was such a hard year for her. First Maric, then Dairren went to Antiva to study.” 

Eleanor turned to her husband, “I remember how she held Dairren’s hand, and how he stayed by her side and never left it.” Bryce noticed her smug look, “I remember how heart broken both were when his ship sailed.” She smiled like a cat that ate the cream in the larder, “I remember how Kai moped around for months, almost a full year after he left.”

Bryce felt warning bells going off. He knew Eleanor wanted Kai to be happy, but he knew his wife was despairing that Kai would ever find a noble she would like, much less love. And one grandchild had only fueled his Elle’s desire for more to fill the castle with, “Elle, are you trying to play matchmaker again?” Bryce waved a hand over all the items of Kai’s childhood strewn across the bed, “Is this why you are taking a trip down memory lane? Elle, remember your other attempts? Remember what disasters they have been? I don’t thin-”

Bryce found Eleanor’s fingers on his lips before she kissed him, “You didn’t see how she looked at Dairren when she came around the corner from the kitchen today.” Bryce found himself being kissed again, “And you didn’t see, my beloved, how he looked at her.” Her lips stayed on his longer this time, and his own heart beat faster. Eleanor, even after all their years together, still aroused his passions and his love. 

“Do you know what I saw when they looked at each other, my love?” Bryce found his voice would not work, when she kissed him like that, so he just shook his head, “I see the same look you still give me after all these years, and after all the grey hair and wrinkles. I do not have to play matchmaker, dearest love, because she and Dairren have been in love since they met.” She stroked his cheek sending pleasant shivers down his spine as her touch always did, she smiled a knowing smile with a girlish laugh, “Shall we go see Fergus off?”

They gathered each momento and placed them back into the chest. Eleanor closed it and put it back under the bed next to the one for Fergus, and Oren. Bryce smiled to himself. He was a lucky, lucky man. He grabbed Eleanor and planted a lingering kiss on her, enough to leave her breathless and such that it had her exclaiming, “Bryce!” He only grinned more, kissed her hand, and with her fingers entwined in his own they walked down the hall to Fergus’s room.


	11. Patience Is A Virtue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is about Howe, so you might need to cleanse your mind after reading it.  
> So now we come to Howe's thoughts on Kai, this was hard to write. I will let the chapter stand, or fall, on its own. Suffce it to say, if I don't have to crawl around in Howe's head again anytime soon, it will be just fine with me. Anyone know how to give themselves a mental shower? LOL!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
> 
> The part in the story which mentions a Marianne, and her brother Loup Garou, that is from Ladyamesindy's story on Bryce and Eleanor (how they met and fell in love), and she graciously allowed me to use parts of her story for First Cut and Howe's Whispering chapter. Please go and read the story "We Do What We Must." It is original and wonderful. I have seen no other Bryce and Eleanor tales, and they are just such neat characters. So if you are wondering what the story is and why Howe hates Marianne, read and review! I guarantee you won't be disappointed!

A leather bound book with many hand written pages. One could mistake it for a journal, or the ravings of a mad man, whose downfall into his own abyss is marked by each grotesque entry. However, it is clear the author sees it as a biography if the fly leaf containing several titles that have been crossed out, is any indication. The one closest to the bottom of the page reads: "Patience is a Virtue".

The book is opened to the most recent sprawl of cramped writing as the early morning light catches it, and the air is heavy with the scent of blood, death, burning wood and stone. Highever has fallen and Bryce and Eleanor Cousland's bodies are now resting on the trash midden along with their daughter-in-law, grandson and their children's old nanny, who is also the castle cook; Dairren Loren, Lady Landra his mother, and assorted Highever soldiers and staff that were unable to escape last night. The man who wrote this lies sleeping soundly a few feet away as if the smell of decomposing bodies is the sweetest of perfumes.

I sat in my rooms listening to the screams and it was music to my ears. I came to the quarters Bryce had so generously given me, he always was a generous and friendly, the bastard. I left him with my armed men in the Great Hall of Highever castle. I left as one of my men was sticking a sword in his gullet. It only took, what, over thirty years to get what was coming to me. What rightfully belonged to me, and eventually to my misbegotten heirs, birthed from that inferior womb I had the misfortune to marry. Eleanor should have been the one to bear me children! But Bryce Cousland had her instead! Every shite eating Cousland, it is in their blood, they always take what should belong to the Howes!

It started with their thirty years war for independence, and it cost my ancestors Highever and most of the land that had been a part of Amaranthine. Independence! FAH! If it is one thing the Cousland's have in spades, it is independence!

And as if that wasn't bad enough, they added insult to injury when they sided with Maric during the Orlesian occupation. While my, bloody father sided with the Emperor and Meghren. And while my father was not a stupid man, he was not a particularly clever one. He should have played his cards as though he was a double spy, and then watched to see which way the wind was going to blow and pledged loyalty to the winner.

But no, he had to be stubborn. When he found out that our Fereldan would-be king Maric and the rebellion were based in Amaranthine, he tried to fight them with our men. There were several battles, and all my father did was piss away resources, and then lose spectacularly at Harper's Ford. And Malcolm Cousland had him summarily hanged there.

Luckily for the Howe name I am far more clever than that which spawned me, and I know revenge is a dish best served, if not cold, at least well aged. I knew as I watched my father dance at the end of a rope that I would take everything from the Couslands, and they wouldn't see it coming. I went for a long term, but flexible plan. Life is so much simpler when you do, I find.

I pledged to join the rebellion and claimed my father a traitor before his body had even cooled. I fought along side that fool Bryce Cousland and his stupid younger brother, Iain, at the battle of White River. I knew we were going to lose that battle. I deliberately kept back the majority of my army then, claiming that most had died in the battle of Harper's Ford. 

Sometimes the old strategies are the best ones. "Oh I'm so sorry I haven't anymore men, or I'm so sorry the majority of my men are delayed..." Ah, I have to laugh, I even amaze myself sometimes, something that I find, as time goes by, increasingly hard to do.

More than thirty years, and now my plan has come to its proper aging, like that fine Antivan Wine I found in that Cousland brat, Kaidana's room (wine that I am sipping now as I write the events of the evening). I admit I was disappointed when I did not have to step over that slattern's cooling corpse to get this fine vintage, only her lover's, Bann Loren's son. Small loss that. Like me, poor Loren, married to an inferior and useless spouse who didn't even have the decency to at least produce worthy progeny from between their thighs. I am sure Loren will not be disappointed that he has been relieved of two of his greatest burdens and embarrassments. The man might even believe I deserve a reward for it!

I consider it a bonus to have aided Loren. After all my goal, when I showed up with a small force to the castle proper, while leaving my army camped outside waiting for the appropriate hour, was simply to take back what was mine.

Mine! Eleanor should have been mine too, but for that Orlesian turncoat, traitor to her own people, Marianne! She brought Eleanor and Bryce together again. She stopped a part of my revenge to take from the Couslands oh so long ago. I should have killed that foreign twat when I had the chance. Instead her own brother had that distinct privilege. Unfortunately for the poor bastard, he didn't live to celebrate his own success, as brother and sister had slain each other. Had he survived, we might have been allies. As it was, despite the delay in action, it is probably just as well. Had Le Loup Garou succeeded, Loghain might never have trusted me with the ... current situation.

Ah, but it does not pay to dwell on the past and the what-should-have-beens when the present is paying the dividends so richly deserved today. For today I saw my chance and took it. I took Highever castle and it only cost me a few hundred worthless men. Not thousands as it cost my ancestors. I must say I am the cleverest of my bloodline to be sure.

I pretended to be friends with that fool Bryce Cousland. I watched Eleanor have the children that should have been mine. Her own daughter, so much more a beauty than my own Delilah. Black hair like her bitch of a mother. She turned from a tomboy with scraped knees and a dirty face into a woman with all the curves in all the right places. And that spit fire personality, what is that quaint nickname Bryce used? Oh yes, his 'fierce girl'. It only adds spice to the sauce. I have often imagined how much enjoyment I would have taken from breaking her, the thought has made it difficult to be around her, such are my fantasies.

Until she turns those eyes on me. Those blue, blue eyes. They are sharp and piercing. Her Grandsire Malcolm's eyes. Those same blue eyes that watched as my father Tarleton dangled at the end of a noose for the short drop and sudden stop he ordered for him. And damned if I don't feel laid bare before those eyes as I did with her Grandfather. And I am left wanting, in those eyes. But for their color, the would be the eyes of a hawk or falcon. I saw eyes like hers in the Merlin that was at the mews of Highever.

I hate those eyes. And they were turned upon me in the Great Hall as I stood talking to her father the fool, giving my excuse for the delay of my army. I turned to see her standing there. I wondered right then if the game wouldn't be up, if she really couldn't read my thoughts, or that I would give something away squirming mentally under that gaze. What is it about her that makes me lose my calm? Equal parts lust, and hate, that I know. But there is something else.

It was that 'something else' that had me give the order to my men she was to die, they were not to try and capture her alive, no matter how much my desire to tame her begged me to have them attempt it. I am not a man driven to passion as others are, I keep my emotions in check, and under a tight leash. Others have called me cold, but I find keeping one's emotions in control help run that simple but flexible plan I mentioned before.

But her, Kaidnana Cousland, with that ridiculous shortening of her name, Kai. She is the one that makes me want to lose control and forgo my calculating plans. Hatred, lust, and fear how can one woman I watched grow up with dirt on her nose, draw such feelings from me? I know she is dangerous. And so I ordered her destroyed along with her family.

The screaming, alas, died down after a while. Pity, it had such a delightful melody. A little background music to go with my reading and my cognac.

The quiet told me that I would be getting a knock on my door, and I was not disappointed. Captain Lowan had come in to give his report and to escort me around the castle. He had told me they had captured some of the castle inhabitants alive. One foolish knight, protecting the gates, who had fought so hard he had to be taken down by five men. They managed not to kill him. And that Chantry whore, a Mother Molly, or Molloy, or something equally unimportant. I shall have fun playing with them.

And then Captain Lowan brought forward one of his men, the man was covered in red boils. He was so nervous to face me the man pissed himself, and I knew the news was going to displease me.

Bryce's little spitfire got away with that Grey Warden, Duncan. Oh but it didn't stop there. Not only had she gotten away, but she slaughtered countless numbers of my men in the process. Most were of no name, and certainly none of any consequence save one: Knight Dallon. That little bitch killed my best knight!

I began to have a moment of self doubt. Where had I gone wrong? I hate those feelings, and that girl brought them out in me. Again, that lust coupled with admiration that she could fight through a castle of my soldiers, and a mage no less, and survive and escape. It made me hate her more, and want her more, and fear her more.

To cover for these whirling emotions I made myself feel better by slitting the throat of the soldier who failed me. And then I had Captain Lowan take me on a tour to look at all the bodies. I ordered them dumped in the trash of course. That is what they are after all. The Cousland trash.

As to Bryce's little princess, well she is on her way to Ostagar. I have sent a messenger to Loghain, warning him about her. And the messenger will also alert my other ally there, a noble who has been willing to aid me. After all, people die in battles. I am sure that a well placed dagger or sword with all the noise and confusion of the battlefield and it will never be questioned when she turns up dead.

So I have nothing to worry about. Life is easier with a simple and flexible plan. She will die at Ostagar, and I shall continue to get what I deserve. What I have always deserved. I am now Teyrn of Highever. And who knows where my plan may lead me? Well, only time will tell, after all patience is a virtue.


	12. On the Wings of the Dove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two missives on parchment bundled together. Both letter’s paper bear the watermark of the official seal of the Bannorn of Rainesfere. The first letter is to Bernardo, second to Duncan as Commander of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. The second is for the newest Grey Warden, Alistair. They are put together in an envelope with a wax seal bearing the Grey Warden Commander’s seal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
> 
> Thank you for following, kudos, and comments, they mean to world to me.

Bernardo,  
I know you expected me to arrive at Ostagar sooner, but the delay was unavoidable. I hope my other two recruits made it to you safely. 

I am sending this letter via the birds here at the inn in Rainesfere. I know that you have not heard from me for a week, and there is a good reason for that, my friend. I have sad, and terrible news. I know I told you that Arl Rendon Howe was plotting something. Well he revealed that something the very night I sent my previous letter out earlier that day. Howe’s men were not delayed, they were laying in wait until Bryce Cousland’s men marched out with his son, Fergus. They attacked the castle, killing anyone caught inside. The main goal was to kill Bryce and Eleanor, and Kaidana as well. They succeeded in all but Kai.

It was truly horrific, Bernardo. Howe took no hostages. He slaughtered a child, Kai’s nephew, Oren. I found my friend Bryce fighting two men while suffering with a gut wound. I helped him and he explained that he was looking for Ellie and Kai. I promised to help him, the wound was horrible, even with a mage and potions, I doubt he would have survived it. I took him through the castle. We made it to the servant’s entrance, but they were not there. I told Bryce I would go and look for them. But she and Ellie found us first.

Truth be told, Bernardo, if it had not been for her, well I think you would have had your promotion sooner than later, my friend. I had intended to test her, well Howe did that for me. She not only fought her way to her father and myself, but she fought afterwards with cracked ribs and multiple wounds no less. I watched her fight and in the heat of real battle, not just practice in the armory yard, she exceeded my expectations and surpassed them. She is cunning and clever. Remind me to tell you about using bees as a weapon, my friend. You may not believe me when I tell you.

I know I wanted to recruit her, and she passed with flying colors, but at what cost? My dear friends were slaughtered in their own home. I had to make my friend, Bryce, promise me that I could have her for the Grey, or she would have stayed behind and died, Bernardo. I felt sick to my stomach and disgusted doing it. I know, I know, we do what we must! Even if it made me feel like a betrayer to Bryce and Ellie. I will seek the King’s ear on this. I swear it will not go unanswered Bernardo! Howe’s actions cannot, and will not, stand! 

So, we have been on the run, in case Howe plans on sending men out for her. I only pray he does not find anyone to get her brother Fergus before we can warn him and tell Cailan what happened. I only hope that if Howe has sent out anyone, and if he has that they are delayed by the rainstorms. As for us, I took the longer route around the lake, trying to throw off Howe. We will be taking a ship across Calenhad to Redcliffe, and then we will travel to the Hinterlands and Ostagar.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the voyage across water will make up for the delay in taking the longer route around Lake Calenhad, and will give us the advantage of beating any of Howe’s men who might be on horseback searching for us, or trying to get to the King first. I think the rain will work to our advantage as well, if the state of the roads is anything to go by. 

As for my newest recruit? It was a close thing, Bernardo. Closer than even she or I realized. She has been silent since we left Highever. I thought to give her time to grieve and get her bearings again. I almost made a grievous mistake, my friend. She was not mourning, she was burying it. I should have known by her personality that she might react that way. I take responsibility for that. I should have pressed her to talk sooner. And she did almost break, but in the end she is the willow, not the oak. 

Await our arrival my friend, we will be with you soon. I calculate three, no more than four days, look for us then.

Duncan

Second piece of parchment folded over inside the first with the name “Alistair,” penned on the outside of it.

Alistair, my boy,

I hope you are well, and studying those books I gave you on the Grey. And I hope you are leaving some cheese for the rest of your fellow Wardens. 

I wanted to tell you about the newest recruit. Her name is Kaidana, or as she likes to be called, Kai. She is from Highever and she is exceptional in her fighting skills as a rogue. She is quick, lithe, and uses a form of open handed martial arts she learned from a Qun priest. As you are a shield warrior, I think pairing you two up will be beneficial to both of you. 

I also hope that you can be a friend to her. She will need one. Terrible things happened to her family at Highever, and she will need a companion. A good friend. And your brand of...humor, shall we say? Your wit may be just what she needs, it’s been really bad for her Alistair, but she is a strong young woman. Just help as best you can. 

I will send her to find you as soon as we arrive. I am estimating no more than three days, maybe four, and we should be there. Help Bernardo see to the other recruits, particularly that Daveth fellow. We need to keep him out of trouble as much as we can, he does have sticky fingers.

I need to get this sent off, so it reaches you before we do. Take care lad, and try to stay away from the Revered Mother, you know she hates us both. And try and get along with everyone.

Duncan


	13. Walking Wounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, what did Kai write in her journal? Well, I decided to put it in Whisperings. I know, I know! Whispering Sighs was supposed to be what others thought of Kai. But it seemed so appropriate to put hers here as well. I hope you won’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all except what I made up. : )
> 
> And my humble gratitude to all of you lurkers, readers and reviewer! You fan the flames of my passion to write. I can’t thank you all enough. ^_^

When Duncan handed me this journal, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I knew other noble girls kept diaries detailing their crushes, the latest fashions, newest hairstyle, and shoes! Maker, a lot of inane writings over who wore what, and what parties or salons they had attended. I know this because I filched a few diaries when I was younger hoping for some entertaining reading. Instead I was bored out of my gourd. I quit stealing them especially after I had read Brina’s detailed description of what her and Lun got up to behind the Chantry in Denerim during services one day. UGH! There was not enough alcohol (should I have been allowed to drink at such an early age) to erase that from my mind. Needless to say, I quit stealing from the noble chits after that. 

So here I sit on board a ship pulling into Redcliffe village after sailing the rough, storm tossed waters of Lake Calenhad. Andraste’s knicker weasels! I swear not only did I leave all of my breakfast behind after the chamber pot was dumped, I left my stomach behind too, or at least I wished I had left it behind the way it turned in circles with the bouncing of the ship. Now the lake is calm, the storm having left off as it blew us into Redcliffe. Duncan says we made good time. And with the little bit of sabotage I did to that snake, Howe’s servant’s horse, well. Let’s just say he would have been cursing my name, if he had known who had foundered his horse. 

But I guess I am reminded of why Duncan gave this book to me. I did something supremely foolish, and self centered. I tried to...kill myself. I suppose if I hadn’t had a melt down, it would have been more worrisome. I watched everyone I loved die, save Fergus. And I don’t even know if he is alive, or if Howe got him too. Or, if he is alive, will he stay alive in the upcoming battle at Ostagar. I saw my love killed in front of me. I saw the dead bodies of my sweet little nephew and my beloved sister-in-law. I found out a beloved childhood friend loved me more than I thought possible, only to leave him behind to be hacked to pieces, no doubt, saving me. I saw my old nanny, a second mother, my own mamae’s best friend’s cooling corpse on the cold stone floor. I had to leave my parents behind to be slaughtered by Howe’s men. I have their faces, as they waited to meet their deaths, branded forever in my memory. I watched my beloved home burn. Those horrors will all share my memories of them alive and happy. And oh how that hurts. I feel guilty for living. No, worse than that, I am happy to be alive, and that is why I feel guilty. I am happy to walk under the sun one more day, while they walk in the Fade. That is what hurts the most. 

It reminds me of a tale my father used to tell me sometimes, when I would crawl in his lap while he was working in his study. He would put down his work, and cuddle me close, so I could hear his heartbeat. I would listen to his deep, rumbling, kind, and gentle voice spin a tale. We would talk of many things. But sometimes he would tell me a story of a king of the Clayne tribes that made up Ferelden before Calenhad united them all under one king and the Theirin line. This king of that long ago tribe, whose name has been lost to history and turned to dust, ran under the banner of the Kingfisher bird. Now in those days, it was believed the king and the land were linked with a bond that should one fail the other would do so as well. And that each king of each generation must swear with his blood his fealty to the land and thus his people. What befalls one befalls the other.

This king my father told me was young and brash, full of himself and his own self importance. He thought of nothing but himself and his own lusts, passions, and wants. When this king, well prince then, when this prince’s father died suddenly the kingship was thrust upon him. The ceremony was performed, and the new king cut his forearm to bleed upon the earth of the field of his kingship. The pact was made. But the young king in his arrogance did not believe in the bond. And he lusted for a priestess of the order, a servant of the Goddess of the land. When she would not submit, he took, as he thought he had the right to as king. His rule was sacrosanct, or so he thought. But when out hunting the king fell on his spear, piercing his thigh and causing a wound. The wound was not fatal, but nor would it heal. The king had wounded the land and thus had wounded himself. The land sickened as did the king.

I too have wounded myself. I took what I had for granted, I thought it would always be the way it was. How wrong I turned out to be. I used to long for something else. And now I have it. I have no one to blame but me. I am that long ago king. I have a wound that will not kill me, but will not heal. I know it can be borne, though. And I will, even if I bleed crimson regret the rest of my days. I will not shirk my responsibility ever again. I made a promise to my father, and to Duncan. I will keep it. I will do my duty, because we Couslands always do our duty.


	14. One of the Few

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Cailan in his tent at Ostagar. His Master of Wardrobe, a stoic man who had been with the king before he was king, is helping Ferelden’s ruler change into more comfortable clothing before meeting with Loghain and then going to drink and spend time with his men and the Grey Wardens. King Cailan is composing a letter to Queen Anora.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )  
> And my love and appreciation to all my readers, reviewers, and lurkers. You are just so wonderful. I hope you know how much I appreciate your support. : )
> 
>  
> 
> Blessings!

Anora,

After my meeting with Duncan, and her, I made my way back to my tent. Spending time drinking with my soldiers and with the legendary Grey Wardens has its benefits. Thanks to Bernardo, Duncan’s second, I knew when to expect Duncan and his new recruit. I had the elven messenger that runs errands around camp watch for signs of him, giving the servant the Warden Commander’s description, so I could time it perfectly to meet him at the gates. 

You will never believe whom Duncan had in tow. It was none other than Bryce Cousland’s little spit fire, Kaidana. I know I told you had I met her when she was but ten years old, her hair all down and covering her shoulders like black rain, a dirty pink dress, in leather boots, chasing her brother around in a garden. She was such fun, she and her brother Fergus had been stealing apples from the royal orchards. And she soundly whipped some of the nobles’ sons. She was such a delight, and we stole strawberries together. That was one of the happiest days I have spent. 

I know you must remember her from my father’s funeral, I introduced you to her then (or rather you burst in between us and introduced yourself, did you not my jealous one?). Looking back on that event I can see why you were envious. All the potential for womanhood was just waiting to blossom into the flower of beauty I met today.   
My father adored her, and she him. Kai was one of the few who were truly sad to see my father gone, and because he was Maric, not just because he was king. He wasn’t just her king he was her friend. As he was more to me than just king, he was my father. I like to think that bonded us beyond that day in the garden. 

I didn’t recognize her at first today. I saw a young woman, sleek black curls in leather armor with a sword and bow and arrows strapped to her back, and daggers at her waist. She looked different, not just that she was now, what twenty? But there was some deep sadness around her eyes that was there at my father’s funeral, but it was much more pronounced. It was when Duncan went to introduce her, and I looked into those big blue eyes that I realized who the new recruit really was. 

And the girl has grown into a stunning young woman. My father always said that Eleanor Cousland was stunning in her youth, and her daughter must take after her mother. She is, well... glorious. All of that budding possibility stood there in front of me fully blossomed. And the Dalish tattoo she had on her face only enhanced her attractiveness, along with her being a Grey Warden. You know how I feel about the Wardens. 

But it was the stunning news about her mother and her father that has me writing you. I will be delaying my return to Denerim, my wife. Kai and Duncan informed me that Arl Rendon Howe has attacked Highever castle, killing all but Kai and Duncan. I paled to hear it, Anora. Bad enough that Howe has disobeyed his king and did not bring the troops he as he was ordered to do. But he attacked and killed one of my most loyal, and trustworthy subjects. Not only that, I considered Bryce a friend as he had been to my father before me. 

I cannot let this stand. Once the darkspawn are vanquished, I will be turning my armies toward Amaranthine to deal with Arl Howe. Your skillful handling of the intricacies of daily governance are greatly appreciated, my sweet. Please continue on as you have and Ferelden shall achieve its glorious place in history. 

Your heroic husband,  
Cailan


	15. Wynne's Whisperings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So now we get Wynne’s impressions of Kai, I hope you enjoy it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
> 
> And my personal love and thanks to all of you who read, and lurk, and review. It is such a thrill just to write, but to know that people actually read and enjoy it, well that is the icing on the cake that is my life. So thank everyone, you are all so important to me. I only hope to keep entertaining you. I am humbled by your support.

She walked away, a stiff set to her shoulders, her ebony locks making a slight shishing noise as the curls brushed the leather. Even if I had not spoken to Duncan a short while before she arrived in front of me, I would have recognized her: Kaidana Cousland. I had been called to the palace in Denerim on numerous occasions; to help bring prince Cailan into the world, to tend to Queen Rowan when she was ill and dying, various Landsmeets, and then Maric’s funeral. On several occasions I recall seeing the little spitfire that was the younger version of her current self as she caused upsets amongst the various nobility or the palace staff. But she was a delight to the king, and his son. This day, however, she appeared as an an echo of the mourning young girl from Maric’s funeral; that mantle of sadness heavy upon her young shoulders, this time for losses too devastating to measure. Duncan told me of what happened to the poor child’s family. Such a shame.

The steam from the large cauldron of healing potion wafts over me as the breeze has changed yet again. I grab the large spoon to give the bubbling mixture a needed stir. 

We were going to need this brew and so much more of it, if Duncan was right. Judging from the scent, the elixir is almost ready, which is just as well. I’ll be assisting Duncan with the preparation of the magical ingredients for the Joining rite. Duncan has asked me to see to it personally. At least for that I will be able to sit down. My back is aching from standing for hours tending to the numerous health draughts. 

“Wynne!” I recognize the voice calling me as belonging to one of the newest members to pass her harrowing, Chrysalys. She is a serviceable enough assistant, but the girl was always running everywhere, a bundle of endless energy. I missed Petra and her calm and soothing demeanor. Chrys wears me out.

“Wynne! I brought you those ingredients you said you needed. I gathered them from the supply chests." I take the ingredients that she held out to me while I follow her gaze resting my most recent visitor, who has stopped to speak to one of the Tranquil. “Wynne, is that...?”

“Is that whom, child?” I keep from rolling my eyes at the sound of awe in her voice as I sat down the bags of supplies.

“Is that the newest Grey Warden recruit and is she really a noble? Not just any noble, but a Cousland? And is it true her whole family was slaughtered?” Ah, Chrys must have been listening at the keyhole, so to speak, when I spoke to Duncan. A bad habit my fellow mage developed before she came to the tower as a child. 

“Yes, that is she. And no, you may not go and ask her questions. She has been through enough, and she is still getting her legs under her again.” 

“What’s she like Wynne? She certainly doesn’t act like a typical noble woman.” 

I sighed drying my hands on a rag sitting near the cauldron for that purpose. “She isn’t typical. And she never has been. While we have never been formally introduced, I know of her from Landsmeets and personal observations. And I have spoken with Duncan, who knew her family and has been traveling with her.”

“Soo-oo, what’s she like Wynne?” Chrys’ green eyes widen, reminding me of a child begging for a story.

I motioned Chrys over to a bench under the trees so I could at least sit for a moment. I eased down onto the stone seat and enjoy the breeze as it blows through the trees. It was a hurried journey we made from the tower, the Chantry having argued against mages being allowed to be at the battle until the very last days. Word finally reached Irving and we were summarily packed and sent to Ostagar. I volunteered of course, any chance to travel, and see the world, even if it is tiring to travel on such short notice. 

I feel Chrysalys fidgeting beside me. Ah, the impatience of youth. I have to chuckle to myself. I suspect Kaidana Cousland to be very much the same in that regard as the young mage sitting beside me. “Well?” Chrys’s impatient voice breaks my reverie.

I sighed, “Kaidana Cousland, from a young age has been...headstrong. But she has a sense of fairness, of justice, of defending those perceived as weaker from the bullies of the world. She has never succumbed to the rules and restrictions set out for her by her station. She is smart, and, from what Duncan told me about the night she escaped, a remarkable warrior.”

I give Chrys my sternest look, “She is emotionally raw right now, so you are not, young lady, I repeat, you’re not to go asking her questions. If I tell you what Duncan told me about that night--yes I know you couldn’t have caught it all despite your eavesdropping, child--then you are to promise me you will leave her be. She has more to worry about in the coming days besides the loss of her home and family; or even the battle.” I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow.

Chrysalys huffs and scowls but nods, “Yes, mistress Wynne, I promise. So what happened?” 

I have to smile at her antics. I pat her hand. I know Chrys will keep her word. “Highever was attacked in a treacherous move by Arl Howe. He lied about a delay in his men reaching Highever to march to Ostagar. He waited until Teyrn Cousland sent his men off with his son, Fergus, here and attacked the castle.”

I watch as Chrys’ eyes widen, “He attacked the Teyrn?”

“Not just the Teyrn, but everyone inside. He killed them all, child. Including Kaidana’s six year old nephew. She left her parents to die.” Chrys’ hand flies to her mouth when I tell her. “She had no choice, she promised her father she would escape with Duncan and become a Grey Warden. She has lost everyone except perhaps her brother. And if he yet lives, he could still be lost in battle. So you see why I do not want you bothering her with queries that will only cause her more pain?” I wait until I see the bob of her head in agreement. 

“She is so very strong to have lived through that.” 

 

“Yes, yes she is. But I doubt at this moment, strong is what she feels. Now I think you have other duties you need to tend to, don’t you, young lady? One such duty would be to inform the templars I need two of their strongest to move this cauldron off the fire. The healing draught is done.” I tilt my head at towards the templars in question then at Chyrs.

“Yes, mistress Wynne.” I watch as she jumps up with that boundless energy of hers and walk back into our camp. I watch her retreating back as her mage robes rustled with her fast pace. 

There was something I did not tell Chrys, that Duncan had confided in me. He told me of what Kaidana had tried to do to herself back at the inn in Rainesfere where they had stayed. Strong? Oh yes, she is that. But how fragile too. And from what Kaidana and I had discussed, and her reaction to it, emotionally raw as well. Maker watch over her, the poor child.

I was just starting to rise when I heard laughter, carried on the wind. A woman’s and a man’s. It was such a pleasant sound I seek out the source. I see her as she walks down the ramp with Duncan’s second newest recruit Alistair. He is such a nice young man, despite his obsession with cheese. He is blushing but grinning along with her. Duncan has chosen well, If anyone can help her heal, Alistair can. He has a shared pain, and still has his sense of humor, even if it is a bit odd. But still if her laugh is anything to go by, well... I could still see the pain around her eyes, but her demeanor is far more relaxed than when we had finished speaking. I can’t help but notice what a striking couple they make, and the energy between them. Yes, I think Duncan chose very well indeed.


	16. Cheesy Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah poor Alistair, stuck with leading the new recruits into the Wilds, one of whom is Kai. I write this story and I feel sorry for him! LOL! I hope you enjoy his take on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I made up.
> 
> Shout outs to my betas: Night Hunter MGS, Ladyamesindy, Violet Theirin, Piceron, Blightsworn, and Janni who all help me so much. I appreciate you guys more than I can say. Thank you for letting me bug you all.
> 
> And my humblest feelings of love and appreciation to you my fans, my lurkers, my reviewers. My day job is a hard one, and writing helps keep me from running away from home. And knowing that I am entertaining you all with my writing, only makes it that much more special. I started writing for myself, but it is so much better to have such great company. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. : )
> 
> Oh and I apologize for the delays in posting these Whispering chapters. Real Life got in the way. I hope to post more regularly now. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you will come back and read again.
> 
> Blessings!

A leather bound diary about a quarter filled with small, precise yet legible writing. Some pages have finger sized grease stains, and the book itself smells of Ferelden Cheddar, as if it has been resting next to a wheel of same. 

********************************************************************************************************  
~30 Bloomingtide 9:30 Dragon~

 

I am glad that Duncan gave me this journal to write my thoughts in. I needed something to help me sort through them with the sudden twists and turns my life has taken. If anyone had asked me six months ago when I was stuck at the Chantry what I thought my life would be like in a mere few days time, I would have said: short. But then Duncan showed up just when I thought despair would swallow me whole and that there was only one way out of the prison I was consigned to without benefit of pleading my case. He freed me, and at a great cost to him, and the Grey, considering the reaction of the Grand Cleric (the old bat).

Duncan sent me and my fellow Grey Wardens (Maker, that sounds much better than my fellow Templars) on to Ostagar (along with the cutpurse who picked his pocket while we were in Denerim that he saved from the noose). He traveled alone to different places around Ferelden looking for more recruits. I was disappointed, I had hoped to go with him. Holy Maker, we need so many more Wardens for what is to come. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. Duncan found only two others, and while Cailan favors the Grey, he is not waiting for Grey Wardens from Orlais to cross our borders.

I’m so new to the Grey Wardens, and while they have been friendly, Duncan is who I find I am most comfortable with. He is the first person to actually care about what I want. So I am willing to do whatever he asks of me, including, Maker help me and them, to lead the newest group of recruits into the Wilds. I have to admit that when he asked me I panicked. After all if I lead we get lost, people may die, and I would wind up in the Wilds sans pants. 

That man is as cool as the water in the Waking Sea, though. He cracked a smile, patted me on the shoulder, said my name and made me feel like a ceffel’s arse. Which I suppose I am. [there is a slightly greasy stain here that smells of cheddar] 

But I am no leader, what if people do die? Okay, not thinking of that! Must get a hold of myself! 

And I have been having some strange dreams lately. And not the strange type of nightmares from the Joining. Ever since Duncan wrote that letter about Kaidana Cousland that he sent to Bernardo, I have had dreams I cannot quite hold onto, like water through my fingers. In one of the dreams someone’s life was in danger, something about broken glass... it is all so hazy. The most interesting one was the dream about cheese, which for me isn’t unusual, but it the person whose life was in danger was in my dream again, I think. And there were live cheese mice and a bread cat. It all gets hazy after that.

Duncan’s letters were an interesting evolution. His description of Kaidana, excuse me, Kai, fascinated me. Who was this Lady Cousland with tattoos on her face, a penchant for stabbity stabbity, and an audacious personality? 

 

I must confess, I was ready to be intimidated. She is Ferelden royalty of sorts, her father being Teyrn of Highever and second only to the throne. But it was Duncan’s description of her personality, from the age of four on, and her ability to see what others miss, that really made me nervous (after all what would she see in me?). That, and what happened to her family, how could I offer any kind of comfort that would bring solace after such horrors? 

I admit, only in this journal, that I read every missive Duncan sent over Bernardo’s shoulder. Heh heh, Duncan got nervous like a teenage boy when she smiled at him. I am so going to tease him about that. I wasn’t sure what to expect, really, and what I got, well, was extraordinary. 

The Revered Mother cornered me and guilted me into speaking to one of the senior mages on her and the Chantry’s behalf. The mage took the source of the epistle with less than fervent enthusiasm. He and I were exchanging, well pleasantries, shall we say? That was when I noticed a woman walking up the ramp towards us. The sunlight shone off her black hair. And Duncan was right about those blue, blue eyes, they did take in everything, and they found it all...amusing. 

I watched her lean casually against one of the pillars to observe the mage and I do our little verbal dance. I hate to admit it, but I did get little snarky with the fellow. And Kai Cousland’s responses to my jabs only spurred me on, I liked hearing her laugh. 

And laugh she did, which did not endear her to the mage at all. In fact, he was so enraged with both of us, that he bumped into her on his way out, calling her a fool, and she told him off and then stuck her tongue out at him! I thought I would crack a rib laughing. 

Not only did she laugh at my teasing her and my jokes (not the response I typically get to be sure), but she traded barbs right back. She has a wicked sense of humor with a quick tongue. She also has quite a temper, and she can be fierce; but it is coupled with discipline (something she and I share, I from my Templar training). She is willing to listen to reason (mostly), which is a good thing for Loghain, Bann Loren, and the Grey Wardens. 

For a woman born to privilege, one step away from the throne, she is acutely aware of the suffering of others. She wanted to conscript that prisoner to save him from the noose, like Duncan did Daveth. It took some convincing that we couldn’t abuse that allowance granted to us by the King. She is a reasonable person, again, a surprise given her status. Instead she snookered food and water from the guard; and she intends to see that, Norval I think his name is, gets a fair hearing when the battle is over.

Duncan is truly right, she is far more clever and observant by half. Despite my natural inclination to blurt out any secrets (I have never been good at being enigmatic or cryptic like Duncan and one reason I am terrible at playing “Wicked Grace”), I have this desire to share with her...everything. Well almost everything, I do want her to get to know me without knowing my parentage. Without me saying anything (though I admit I blush and shuffle my feet when nervous) she managed to figure out the connection between darkspawn blood, its corruption, and the Grey Wardens. She also knew that she could be facing death. She simply laughed anytime I told her I couldn’t say anything. When she confronted Duncan just now, about the Joining being a possible death sentence, he was not surprised that she had figured it out at all.

After she saw Arl Howe’s man leaving Teyrn Loghain’s tent, I thought she would just accuse the man outright of being involved with the destruction of her family (she can be blunt). But, she played her cards close to the vest, and rattled the man instead. As much as I hate thinking that the Hero of River Dane and the man keeping the lid on the pot was involved with the slaughter of the Couslands; she was right, the Teyrn knows more than he is letting on. 

She did draw her daggers on Bann Loren, who called her names which I will not repeat. There is some sort of history there, having to do with his son, I think. Whatever it was, she and the bann dislike each other intensely. 

And yet, mention of Loren’s son seemed to make her sad, as did the talk of her brother Fergus. She almost started a fight over with the guard at the gate when he made a joke about bets and how long the scouting parties, her brother’s being one, would last. 

That sadness sits on her shoulders, even if she tries to hide it, I see it; and I swear I can almost feel it too. I saw it in the way she spoke to her mabari, assuring him he would be taken care of. The intense sadness in those blue eyes as she and the mabari shared their mutual loss. Her convincing him to stay behind. Even when she told me the funny story of how a huge mabari war dog has the word “rabbit” in his name, it’s there. 

Her intense worry over her brother floats around her like a cloud along with that cloak of quiet anguish and I worry for her. How odd. I worry for her and yet I have known her only a few hours. I worry that her grief over her family and her anguish over her brother still on patrol (I hope), will keep her from surviving the mission Duncan is sending us on. We are to go to the Wilds and that is no place to suffer a dispersal of attention. I worry that she won’t survive the Joining. This concern is as a confusing as this bond I feel like we share. Maybe I am imagining things. Maybe it is wishful thinking. After all, I didn’t have any friends in the Chantry, and I am the youngest and newest Grey Warden, I have no real peers to speak of. She is closer to my age, maybe that’s it. 

Oop, here she comes bearing a shield. I suppose that is what she meant when she told Duncan she could give some of her belongings away before she dies (practical and a little creepy). I had best leave off here. 

Maker, please don’t let anyone die under my leadership; especially not her. Oh, and don’t let me get us lost and lose our pants.


	17. Rub A Dub Dub, Three Men In a Tent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bann Tyrel Loren isn’t a nice man. Verbally abusive and physically (though only the once-after Bryce Cousland had a strong word). He is a schemer, like Rendon Howe, whom he befriends for his own benefit. Unlike Howe, Bann Loren is a coward and not willing to take the big risks, so he grovels around Howe like a mongrel eating his table scraps. His confrontation with Kai and Duncan have left the man frazzled to say the least. We find poor beleaguered Pick (or is he?) in Bann Loren’s tent, ordered there to take a message from the bann and Howe’s man to the carrier birds with word to Arl Howe about Kai, and her suspicions about Teyrn Loghain. It’s not eavesdropping if they make you stay and treat you like furniture, is it? Or is it if that is your real purpose? This is, that I know of, the first time anyone gives Pick a voice of his own in fanfic. I say he is not all he seems. I hope you enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta's all have very busy lives at the moment. So this is...my editing job, for what that's worth. Unadorned, unadulterated. I hope i haven't made any glaring mistakes, and if I have, you'll forgive me in advance.
> 
> My love and gratitude to you all my readers and lurkers. Your comments and reviews, your kudos all mean so much to me. You keep the fire of inspiration burning. Thank you all!
> 
> Blessings!

“Master” is quick to anger and he loves to use the switch. I’ve been beaten more here at Ostagar than I ever have been in all the time I’ve been at the Royal Palace. That’s fine, I can take a beating if that’s what’s needed to do the job. Master was very angry, demanding to know where I’d been all this time. ‘How long could it take to deliver a sword and a few paltry messages?’ He’d yelled. If he only knew, but none of them know. 

This time I was lucky, he didn’t have time for the switch. Master cuffed my ears instead and bid me to come to Bann Loren’s tent to fetch a message. He would have taken time to use the switch if he’d known I delivered the sword from the quartermaster to the wrong person. Ser Garlen forced himself on the quartermaster’s elven assistant. I caught him at it as he had finished with her. He grabbed my arm as I went to comfort her and shoved his sword at me and ordered me to take it to the quartermaster to be sharpened and cleaned for the coming battle. He winked and licked his lips saying that the quartermaster’s elf would be too busy playing with his other sword to be delivering weapons for her master. By the time he finished smirking, Cinnie had disappeared, Mythal protect her. He got angry and he walked off lacing his breeches, looking for her. 

My hands itched to give him his freedom from this mortal plane by introducing him to my favorite dagger, Bellanaris. Since I’m on a mission, that is not possible, so it gave me immense pleasure to give that bastard’s blade to that young noble woman and that young Warden fellow. I hope Ser Garlen has to fight with his dinner fork and the darkspawn drag him off and eat him. Elgar’nan, All Father, hear my plea.

My feet are starting to ache despite the thick rugs on the floor of the tent. I’ve been running around this camp since before sunrise. But discipline and early training serve me well, I let the pain recede from my thoughts. 

Bann Loren bid me wait, if the blank parchment on the small desk in the room is any indication, he hasn’t even begun the message he wants delivered. Why do they always send for a messenger if they aren’t ready for me to take it? While this is a mild annoyance, it suits my purpose very well. I learn as much by their patterns of behavior, and what they say, as well as what they put to words.

I watch the bann as he paces back and forth, he takes frequent drinks from a metal cup and fills it just as regularly. He’s sweating too. Perhaps the almost theft of his dagger has unsettled him? I see a jeweled sheath with the dagger in it on the table near the parchment and I can see the cut leather ties from here. These noble shems have so many things they forget half of it, but they squawk the loudest should the smallest thing go missing when they finally notice it.

The bann keeps rubbing a spot on the middle of his chest, under his chin, and the front his neck while muttering to himself angrily. I can’t quite catch what he’s saying but I do catch “Cousland chit” and a few other nasty names that Master would beat me soundly for saying. A “Duncan” is mentioned. That name I know. King Cailan asked me to tell him when this “Duncan” showed up with the young woman I gave the sword to. And I’ve learned who all the major players are amongst these shems. And more importantly those of no name, but of, I suspect greater importance in the coming days. I know who they are, what they do, who they speak to, who they send messages to, and what those messages say.

I know most of them, except the new one the young female shem. Her arrival being so recent. I have learned her name and some of her character from her behavior. She’s a noble, but she acts with kindness towards others of lower station. She’s fed the prisoner, Norval, I saw her look with sympathy on the tranquil fellow, and her look of disgust at the templars guarding the mages. She acts towards the flat ears here with gentleness and doesn’t speak down to elves if her interaction with my persona of a beleaguered servant is to be believed. Not the usual response from these shems to be sure. And I must say she has earned another small fraction of my respect if she treated this Bann Loren so poorly that he is ready to wet his pants. I have seen better and braver things drop out of the back side of a halla.

The bann yelps and spills his drink when his man on guard comes to him and announces that a Doy Banach, Arl Howe’s man is here to see him. I pretend to be a piece of furniture, this always served me well in the Royal Palace, and it serves me well now. Howe’s man barely looks my way, his eyes passing over me the same way they do over the armor stand beside me. Perfect. 

I cast my eyes downward in an imitation of subjugation, in case they should pay more notice to me than the chamber pot. I don’t need my eyes to see as I concentrate on my the other senses to glean what I can. And I can paint the entire room in my head, as if my eyes are open and watching. My training serves me well. For when one has no sight one can “see” by way of the other senses, including the mind’s inner eye. The eye that sees in the dark, the eye of the trickster, Fen’Heral. 

Bann Loren’s footsteps go by me, stopping at the table, glass clinks on the metal flagon and liquid pours out, he knocks this back and pours yet another. If the Bann keeps this up he’ll be passed out before the sun goes down. Apparently the Arl’s man has the same thought.

“How many of those have you had already?” The voice of the soldier is rough as though he’s been punched in throat at least once. 

“You have no business asking me such a question! I am a Bann, of noble blood. You are a flunky. I’ll drink as much as I like.” Loren’s already ruddy complexion is getting darker, his eyes bulging. I wonder if he’s going to have an apoplexy. No small loss if he does. 

The soldier smirks at the bann, “I am the soldier of the Arl of Amaranthine, who is now to be Teyrn of Highever, and will be much much more. A man who has friends in the highest of places, and in your case, the very lowest places, Bann Loren, ser (the soldier draws this last word out filling it with contempt). And while he is putting Highever to rights, I am his mouth, his ears and his hands while in Ostagar. You best remember that. Or he may forget that you are a ‘friend’ at all.” 

The Arl’s man walks past me and I hear the scrape of calloused hands sliding along the metal cup the bann is holding as it’s taken from him. If swallowing could be laden with insulting irony, than this one is. The soldier downs its contents before pouring more carrying cup and bottle across the tent and slouching insolently into one of the wooden camp chairs. 

“So what has gotten your smalls in a twist this time? Don’t tell me you’re taking the news of your wife and son’s death badly at this late hour. You seemed fine with it when I told you earlier. In fact you seemed, shall we say, delighted? Rid of that failure of a son, and that drunkard of a wife, and the man who’d wronged you so long ago, Bryce Cousland. What could be better?”

“What? How dare you! I wasn’t delighted! That was my son you’re talking about!”

“Come now, Bann Loren. We know you always thought your wife slept with a scribe. There’s no one here now that you need to pose for.We are honest men here, ser. Let’s not rewrite history at this late date. I’m afraid everyone of the nobles knew how you really felt about them both. The Arl, my lord, did you a favor. Which is exactly what you were hoping for. Now you can get yourself some pretty young thing and try again. Who knows, maybe this time you’ll get it right.”

The bann sputters, face purple with rage as he puffs up, mouth gaping like a fish on land. Maybe this is it, the final fit that takes him to the Fade? Unfortunately, no. The Arl’s soldier waves an impatient hand while pouring himself another drink.

Bann Loren breath comes out in a long slow stream, and he looks as though he’s counting to ten. Ser Banach’s mouth quirks upwards in a triumphant smirk. Loren’s face reddens again, but instead of yelling he goes to the table to fetch another flagon and opens a new bottle that looks like brandy that was sitting there. With a shaking hand he pours himself a generous portion into another flagon before drinking it. I find myself interested in what has this man so frightened. 

So is the Arl’s soldier, apparently. The wood of the chair creaks as his weight shifts forward, “Well, open the poke, ser, let’s see what jumps out. Cat, or pig? If it mews, the Arl will be very disappointed, I assure you.” 

I have to stifle a laugh at the Bann’s confused expression. As a noble he has no idea what Ser Bannach is on about. Only farmers and unscrupulous sellers of livestock would get the reference. But the implied threat, that Loren understands. 

“Your lord didn’t do the job properly, the Cousland chit survived! And now she’s to join the Grey Wardens, of all things!”

“He did do the job, even if it wasn’t the outcome either of you wanted exactly. She will join the Grey Wardens, her brother, if he makes it back from scouting the Wilds will die conveniently in battle, I’ll make sure of that with a well placed dagger in his spine if needs be.” The Arl’s man shrugs at the bann. “As a Grey Warden, the Cousland brat will have no title and hold no lands. Again, no threat to you or my lord.”

“But what if she’s told the king?” Bann Loren is flapping his arms now in distress and he reminds me of a wounded goose in both manner and voice. A honking gander who needs his neck wrung. The Arl’s man needs to be hung over a hot fire, head first. Shems on the whole are horrible. These two are the dregs. 

“She has told the king.” 

“What?” At this the bann starts pacing in front of the desk so fast that puffs of alcohol ladened air waft past me every time he passes by. “What are we going to do?” 

The Arl’s man takes a drink from his flagon before answering. “Nothing.”

“Nothing!” 

“That’s right, nothing. The king won’t be a problem.” This makes my ears twitch. 

“Won’t be a problem? What do you mean, he won’t be a problem? He respected Bryce Cousland, and even loved the man. And he certainly loves the Cousland family. They made sure he got the throne. And that Cousland chit has him wrapped around her little finger, just like she did my son. I bet she’s bedded Cailan, or will, the little slattern. She’ll have him marching on Highever and then Amaranthine as soon as this battle is over!” 

“I said, he won’t be a problem.” The Arl’s man speaks each word slowly. “With your nervous disposition, ser, that should be sufficient for you, don’t you think?” 

His slur on the bann’s temperament and this Bannach character’s leer cause a twitch to develop in the bann’s cheek and his lips to pull down in a thin line before rallying. “The Cousland brat’s the one that foundered your horse, you know.” It’s the bann’s turn to give a smug look.

I hear the leather and metal armor of the Arl’s man creak as he makes a fist. The bann finally landed a hit. “That little bitch! I’d love to get her alone, I’d show her what it means to sabotage my Lord’s property.” 

“I dare say that ‘little bitch’ would show you how much she cares by removing you permanently from the Arl’s employ.” I hear the grin the bann’s voice and the implied ‘I would enjoy that’ in his voice. “She saw you coming from the Teyrn’s tent. She’s questioned the teyrn’s guard who no doubt overheard your conversation. She even questioned the teyrn himself! She’s dangerous, and she knows Teyrn Loghain was involved in the death of her family. I’m sure of it.”

“The teyrn has plans that involve the little slattern for just that reason. He figured if she doesn’t know of his involvement now, she will figure it out given time. He asked me to come to you so we could send a letter to my lord from the Teyrn with an update. A well placed word in the king’s ear and Cailan will be insisting that she and that bastard brother of his are sent to the tower of Ishal. The king will think it’s his idea, the teyrn will pretend to protest...and the Cousland bitch and that by blow of Maric’s will cease to be a problem.” 

“How could Maric’s bastard become a problem, he’s a Grey Warden and the commoners don’t know he exists. And what do you mean about plans at the tower, how can they be killed at it, it’s behind the battle lines.”

“Do you really want me to tell you?” The arrogant smirk of the Arl’s man has returned. And the bann’s sulking cowardice has as well. This makes the Bannach fellow laugh out loud while taking another drink. “I didn’t think so. Suffice it to say, she won’t survive and will be a suitable scapegoat.” 

“Scapegoat?” 

“You do keep asking questions for which you don’t really want the answers.” Bannach swigs more from his flagon, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand--the disgusting pig. What he says next makes my ears twitch, again. “Cailan’s brother may be a bastard and a Grey Warden, but when-. Should something happen to the king and he falls in battle, the people would want the line of Calenhad to be on the throne, a Theirin, Grey Warden or no. And I dare say, the People would love a hero like one of the Grey, that wouldn’t be a detriment but a bit of gravy to the dish. They will find out there is one Theirin still remaining, it’s inevitable. And Arl Eamon would see to it. Though I’ve heard the Arl has taken a bad turn and may not live. Pity that.” A cold smile creeps across his scarred face at this. It gives both the Bann and I a chill. These shems and their machinations, it is worse than my keeper thought. 

The Bannach fellow pours himself more to drink before continuing. “If the People can’t have a Theirin they would take a Cousland as next in line. People do love their traditions. As Anora has no issue by Cailan...well you know, that would leave Anora out. No matter that her father is Teyrn of Gwaren and a hero. As a commoner, her blood is less desirable than other candidates more suitable to the People.”

“Including your lord, no doubt. He has always had his eye on the throne for himself. And I know the history and the politics, better than you, commoner. Why do you insist on speaking to as though I am a slow child?!” The bann’s face is turning an interesting shade of purple again. 

“Because I am trying to make it clear to you that you have nothing to worry about and that you should leave, quietly, before the battle starts.”

“Leave?”

“But not too early. Leave the tent and the furniture, clothes, all of your things. Make it look as though you’re fighting in the battle. Then slip quietly out while everyone is preparing for the battle. Go home, drink, eat and figure out which pretty noble daughter you’ll wed and bed so she can produce a Loren heir from between her thighs for you. Better men than you have this under control. You won’t be missed, and if you are, by some very rare coincidence, the Teyrn will make an excuse for your absence. All you need to do is wait and reap the benefits.”

I expected the bann to sputter and get angry again,howling about the insults to his character and yelling protests about the indignities that he would suffer leaving any of his possessions behind. Again, the more they have the louder they squawk if they have to lose any of it. But he surprises me, I hear his shallow breathing and his rapid heartbeat calm. 

He nods thoughtfully, pointing at the piece of paper on the desk. “So, what shall we tell Howe?” 

“Only how beautiful the scenery is, the wildlife, perhaps?”

“Are you mad?” Bann Loren looks at Bannach the way I would if I were allowed to look straight at him.

The Arl’s man merely gives that sly smirk that has become so familiar. “I’m sure my lord would like to hear about the little fox that came pattering into camp today. A little fox with very big ears. A pretty little fox that the Teyrn, and my lord, have their eyes on and who the Teyrn intends to have caught in a trap, very, very soon. After all, animals can be dangerous, especially here in the Wilds. Best to take care of it quickly, no?” 

Even as dimwitted as he is, the bann gleans onto the meaning. Thick as two planks, that one, but at least one candle shines in that cavern of a head of his. How he is considered of higher importance in this shem world, eludes me. He nods and sits down taking a quill and dipping into the ink bottle. “Yes, I think the Arl would love to read about that bold little fox that dares come so close to us at camp.” 

I listen as they discuss what should go in the letter, the bann writes it while the Arl’s man offers suggestions over his shoulder. Finally they finish the rough draft, and the bann rewrites it in small neat writing two more times. He then tears the written portion from the larger piece and tears the extra copy from the first, rolls both small enough to fit the messenger birds small holders on their legs. He seals them both with a spot of wax and affixes a miniature sigil of his house it before it cools.

I pretend to have fallen asleep on my feet, and the Arl’s man has to cuff my ears to get my attention. “Oh, oh, I’m so sorry, sers!” I make sure my voice quavers and stutters. 

“Wake your lazy arse up and take this message to the birds for the Arl of Amaranthine’s house, and the ones for Highever. Make sure you take them to the Keeper of Birds right away. You are not to take any other messages or tasks until this is done. You will make sure the messages are sent immediately, and you will come back here and tell us when it is done. Do you understand, you half-witted, knife ear?”

“O-o-of course, ser!” Though I’d like to give them a little message of my own, one that has them choking on their own blood. “Right away, sers!”

I make sure my hand shakes as I take the rolls of parchment, bending low and often as I back out of the tent. The bann’s soldier on guard flashes me a sympathetic look and motions me over.

“Here, they won’t pay you for your time, but have a beer on me at least.” He hands me a few coppers of their shem money. “You should get battle pay for dealing with them.” 

I find myself shocked. Not all of these shem treat the elven like vermin, my clan will be surprised. I smile a shy smile and take my leave, running of course. I will deliver these messages as a good little servant should. But now I have another task. On the night of the battle I will take all of the elves that will go, with me and flee this place and return to my people. These elves maybe flat ears, who have forgotten their heritage, but they are my kind. I’ll not leave them to be slaughtered if I can help it. And I know now that these shems are planning just that, a massacre by the sounds of it.

I must tell my clan’s keeper that the storm she saw in her dreams is coming. And it will be far worse, than we feared. The storm is coming and we must fight against it or be swept away. For there will be no place we can run that it will not follow along behind us.


	18. Reflections And Strategies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair gets to muse more on Kai and the other new recruits. Thanks for reading along!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I made up.
> 
> And to all my reviewers and readers, my humblest thanks. You make the writing so much more fun, and I admit, it strokes my writer’s ego and makes my heart go pitty pat. You all make my day, my week, my month, my year. *HUGS* to you all too.
> 
> Blessings!

The same leather journal that smells of cheddar. If anything, it smells more strongly of cheese than it did before.  
********************************************************************************************************

~1 Bloomingtide 9:30~

I am putting Bloomingtide on this entry. I think it’s past midnight now, though it’s so hard to tell in this blasted place. 

I am writing this while on watch. Since I can feel the darkspawn before they appear I feel safe in taking time to write this and letting Kai sleep. Other than a disgruntled and rather rude stare from an owl, even the wildlife is manageable. 

I can smell the scent of her, as she rests with her head on my shoulder. That unique fragrance that is Kai, even over sweat and darkspawn blood. 

What is it about her that tugs at me so? It’s like we’ve known each other for years, but that isn’t possible. We hardly ever traveled in the same circles. She was at the palace and Landsmeets, and I was sleeping in stables at Redcliffe or with the dogs in the kennel in Denerim. 

Duncan was right, she can fight, and fight well. She also knows strategy. She assessed our fighting styles and how we would all work best together (something I should have done as the “leader”, I suppose). And that is another thing about her, she is a natural leader, where I am most certainly not. I find myself, and the others do too, following her without any thoughts to do otherwise. 

Duncan was also right about her powers of observation. She figured out the Chasind signs, and found a hidden lock box in a fire pit. She is smart, very smart. And that wicked wit of hers...she keeps me blushing and laughing. Well, the blushing part isn’t that difficult, let’s be honest. The way she trades barbs with that cutpurse is funny to watch, as is her constant befuddling our knightly friend, Ser Jory (and to be charitable, that isn’t so... difficult,to do either). 

I know she is trying to hide her feelings about what happened to her family and her brother, but it leaks through. I know she is desperately worried about Fergus, and in a bumbling fashion which seems to be my want, I made some comment on the corpses hanging from a log. Maker, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. The look on her face...

Luckily for me, she may have a temper, but she readily forgives too. She walked across the log agile as a cat to cut the bodies down, but I knew if she took a fall Duncan would feed me to the archdemon. When I begged her to jump down instead of climbing back across she hesitated for a second. I thought for a moment she would refuse, but she changed her mind. I told her I would catch her if she would. I don’t know what to say about what happened next. When she landed in my arms it was as if time stood still and we were the only people in the whole world. I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest, and I was having thoughts .... The kind of thoughts the Chantry told us were a no-no. I couldn’t have cared less though, and if I was reading her right neither did she, and it could have gone on forever. Well, it was like that until that damnable rogue opened his mouth, smart-arsed cutpurse!

To watch her search a corpse to see if it was her brother almost broke my heart. Her expression was heart rending. Daveth is a little too considerate for my tastes (while Ser Jory is as thoughtful as a bag of hammers, his only concern is getting out of the Wilds). I don’t know why, but I don’t like when Daveth pays attention to her, and it really bothers me when she reciprocates. 

I am so confused by how I feel. She is so familiar to me, and some moments I feel so close that I know her pain. And yet, she keeps me on my toes.There is so much to learn, she is so...complex. I don’t know what to think. I was shunned at the Chantry’s templar school because of my parentage. And dogs and horses are hardly teachers of human interaction. I wish Duncan were here, I don’t want to mess things up with her.

And speaking of messing things up, I almost messed up beyond the point of saving her. We were jumped by darkspawn and I thought she was going to die before she even has a chance to possibly die at the Joining. Maker! When I think of that possibility my throat closes up. I don’t, … no, I can’t think on that. 

And when I was wallowing in my guilt and misery (she could have died because of me), she brushed it off and told me that I wasn’t to blame. When I wanted to protest, she joked and made me laugh. She always makes me feel better. Even when she teases me, it makes me happy, even if she does it just to make me blush. 

I never really had any friends before. My fellow templars-in-training wouldn’t befriend me. The nobles thought I was just a royal bastard, and the others thought I was putting on airs. Kai seems to like me for me, just like Duncan. Maker, I don’t want to keep it from her, but I don’t want her to look at me differently. If tell her that Maric was my father, will she like me less? Maybe I can ask Duncan what to do.

And speaking of him, next to Duncan, Kai is one of the most stubborn and determined people I have ever met. Her insistence on cutting down the bodies and searching them, her determination on cremating the remains of everyone we have found here, and resolve to keep the contents of the lock box safe and deliver them to the man’s widow. At least she is stubborn about honorable things. They are very much alike. Maybe that is why I like her so. 

Well, I had better wrap this up and wake Jory and Daveth to take the next watch. And put Kai in her bedroll, or she is going to have a crick in her neck from sleeping leaning on me. Hopefully the treaties will still be where Duncan, and our Grey Warden map say they are. We’ll find out later today I suppose. Then the Joining and the battle, Maker, let us all survive that or Ferelden will fall, maybe even all of Thedas. Maker, let us succeed.


	19. Morrigan's Mischief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse into the mind of our favorite witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I've made up.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kudos and the hits. I apologize that I didn't get to put everyone's name on here. But know how grateful I am. 
> 
> Blessings!

A slender white wolf with golden eyes lays curled amongst other wolves, her head resting on the back of another in the ruins overlooking a dilapidated hut down below. 

********************************************************************************************************

I could curse my mother for sending me on that dratted assignment. But if I was going to curse her for all the things she has done, ‘twould spend the next ten years of my life just to get through them all. Not to mention my mother is cruel, dark, dangerous, and demon infested; so cursing her...well, ’twould be as useful as spitting in the wind. And Mother taught me often enough, with physical reminders if needs be, that useless activities bring no power and therefore should not be tolerated. 

So Mother sent me to spy on the would-be newest Warden and her group of bumbling idiots. But what can one expect where men are concerned, except idiocy? 

As per Mother’s instructions I started watching them when they entered the Wilds. The female calls herself Kai, I must try and remember that as I think Mother has future plans for the would-be Warden. Mother says humans like it when you use their names. And I am to make friends with her, so I did as Mother said. 

It did seem a lot of work to get them to visit Mother, but she said ‘tis important for her plans. She has seen things with the help of the demon that lives inside of her, trips to the Fade, and whatever other aid that she refuses to divulge. Some powers Mother keeps to herself, ‘tis most annoying. As she keeps the whole of her plan veiled. I know she keeps something from me, some...interpretation of these events, this Blight, these Wardens. Mother says I will know when the time is right. 

Bah, ‘tis just her way of keeping as much power and control to herself as she can; she is a most exasperating creature, much like this Kai person. The would-be Warden has the most uncanny powers of observation. She somehow knew she was being watched, though how, without Mother’s powers,or mine, I know not. Yet she almost saw me more than once, and did see me sitting in a tree when they made camp. ‘Twas in owl form, yet those blue eyes of hers held a hint of recognition, though how that was so, I know not, and it vexes me. I do not like being put in such a state of unease. 

Nor do I know how she knew I was the raven circling over her head, and fortunately for me she stopped the buffoon aiming an arrow in my direction. Lucky for him he did not take the shot and miss, ‘twould have been one less recruit leaving the Wilds had he done so. Though, I was tempted to show the cretin a thing or two about frogs and cooking pots when I finally revealed myself. And then there is this woman’s irritating sense of humor, she seemed to find me amusing rather than intimidating.

This Kai creature? I think she is more dangerous than Mother knows or is willing to admit. Granted, when one has lived as long as Flemeth with a demon nesting inside, arrogance is understandable; though ‘twould not do to underestimate this soon-to-be Grey Warden, I think. Not after watching her and Mother interact.

I brought Kai and the three clowns to Mother. The little boys’s reactions to Flemeth were typical, with arrogant assumptions by the fool blonde one, dim-witted stupidity by the balding knight, and superstitious idiocy by the country bumpkin who tried to shoot me. But this, Kai person, did none of those things. In fact, she looked Mother in the eye, bold as you please. There aren’t many ‘twill do that. And if Mother didn’t have plans involving this woman, she might not have been allowed to do so without reprisal. Mother is not one to tolerate insubordination, or insolence.

‘Twas more than mere brazenness though; the way she looked at Mother, as if she could see through Flemeth’s attempts at playing at being balmy were false. ‘Twas almost as if this mere human woman, with no magical ability, could see the demon within the shell ‘tis my Mother. 

I think Mother is right, I must befriend this, Kai, but not for the reasons Mother thinks. Kai might be the ally I need to battle Mother and win my freedom and Mother’s secrets. Yes, I think this might work out to my advantage. Mother has her plans, and I have my own. “Twill be interesting to see which of us succeeds. 

**** A gravel-toned female voice echoes out amongst the stones of the ruins causing the wolves to whimper in nervousness, some even jump up tails between their legs****

Blast! Mother calls, so I must away. Perhaps she will reveal more of her plan for the would-be Warden; after all, a storm is coming and the battle will be upon them soon. Yes, best to see what Mother wants so I may see to twist it to my own ends.

“COMING MOTHER!”

***** Where a wolf lay a beautiful young woman stands, though the eyes are the same vivid yellow of molten gold. One moment she is there, the next a tawny owl remains with the same burning amber eyes, before great wings spread and the owl flies quietly to the hut below.****


	20. Two's a Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, what Flemeth and her “little friend” think of our intrepid Kai. I hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns everything but what I've made up.
> 
> I wrote this before DAI came out. Not sure how their interpretation goes with mine, if at all. But it is what is.
> 
> Thank you for reading, for kudos, for comments. You all are such a blessing. 
> 
> Oh, and Happy Halloween!!!

What appears to be an old woman (for those who are too dull, or too afraid to look more closely) stands before the large fire in front of a dilapidated shack in the Kocari Wilds. Her sharp eyes hold pinpoints of silvered light that belong to no source from the atmosphere without, but rather glows from within. It is a cold, and penetrating light that seems to see through things, as if this world is nothing more than shadows and dust. Others have stared into that gaze and lived to regret it, if they were not consigned to oblivion so quickly they had no time for such flights of fancy. 

One such person, who has stared into the abyss that was called Flemeth (when it was only human), has that glacial gaze following her retreating back. That the person in question does not flinch or turn back to look, as most would (like a child afraid of monsters) speaks volumes to the old woman that is not an old woman, human, or even abomination. It stimulates, what appears to be a conversation with herself, as the area is empty as her daughter is escorting the woman of interest out of the Wilds (there are others with the young woman, but they are possible tools in a plan that has been decades, even centuries in the planning, and therefore of only minor interest). It is the departing young woman that holds Flemeth’s (and whatever squats inside of her like a toad) attentiveness.

*******************************************************************************************************

So, my old and symbiotic friend, our Morrigan brought them to us. Just as the elves brought Maric to us oh so many years ago; or was it only days ago? Ever since you heeded my call,and saved my mortal shell and my intangible soul from Elstan’s soldier dogs, to us a year is but a blink in the Maker’s eye, isn’t it? What was once two are now one and we became not abomination, but something else entirely; something new we became, something that would make the collective Chantry wet its knickers like mewling babes. We have become power itself.

So much have we seen, so much have we done. ‘Tis our way to play the game with these pretty pieces. 

:. And they provide much amusement. Humans are so entertaining, especially when they disregard the very predictions we give them, like Maric. So delicious when he kept Loghain despite our warnings. Ah the suffering, so ticklishly delightful. And to know that the worst betrayal we warned the then boy king of will take place in only a matter of hours, truly luscious!.:

But we knew he would keep Loghain close despite what we told him. They can be so calculable! It does not even require the fore-seeing that we do thanks to the smoking mirrors in The Hall of Madness within the Black City. We even know of our Morrigan’s desire to escape us and the Wilds; her yearnings to see the world, which we have only encouraged. We have had to be particularly subtle with this daughter. She is the best and strongest of our daughters to date, is she not? 

:.She will make an excellent body for us indeed, the most powerful offspring we have produced so far. To be so fortunate to have a Chasind with magical ability whose seed we could use, yes, such offspring were certain to be strong in magic. So unfortunate that he was so strong of will that only one spawn of our union could be produced before we were forced to dispatch him. It would have been fortuitous to produce a backup should one be needed, as we had done with others before. Alas, we work with what we have. We must make sure our vessel goes with the Wardens, when the time comes. She will need to refine and hone her skills before we take what we have created after she has procured for us the soul of an Old God..:

Indeed, she will be the means that provides us more power then we are now, and more than we can imagine. And we can imagine much, can’t we?

:.Oh, indeed. ‘Tis such a pity that this soon-to-be Warden is female rather than male, is it not? This woman, Morrigan brought to us, is clever, intelligent, and courageous. Imagine the child that would spring forth from our issue, that Warden, and the soul of old power! Alas, even we cannot turn Fate to our choosing in all things. We are subject to the laws of the Maker and his whore..:

But we may not be subject to such restrictions for long, should our plans come to fruition.

:.Yes, if they come to fruition. This... (it stops here as if searching for word and upon finding it, discovers it leaves a bad taste) woman, may prove most difficult. It is vexing that we see not in the mirrors where this creature is concerned. Why we cannot see bothers us, as she is only a human. Why this should be so is unknown. ‘Tis disturbing that we may not see what our vessel and this female get up to. We had hoped to see, if not the creature directly, then through visions of Morrigan. Perhaps we should ensure the female’s death? We do not need her for the God-Child..:

We might wish it were so, but we saw the slack jawed idiots with the soon-to-be Warden. No, if this Blight is to be brought to its head and the Archdemon confronted for us to have access to the soul of the old god, then we must preserve the woman, as dangerous as she may be. 

:. It must be so, the soul of the old god is all, power is all. She is only mortal after all..:

We will tell Morrigan of her role to play...mother (this is followed by deep and husky laughter that holds no real mirth) when we have the new Warden with us once more as guest. Yes, ‘tis best to feed our vessel the plan in pieces, she is far too clever and would seek to turn it to her own ends. Morrigan is a triumph indeed to take her body will be...

:.Luxurious?.:

Indeed! Soon now, the storm will be coming. The rains will fall, the silly boy king will fall, and the Warden will come to us and power, power will be ours for the taking.

********************************************************************************************************

This is followed by more husky laughter that emanates from wrinkled lips. Birds in the trees take off in frightened flight as if a falcon had dived in their midst; for in the wind the laugh seems to hold not one voice, but two, one lower and softer than the other; a jangling and cold counterpoint melody.


	21. Fate is a Fickle Mistress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So we delve into the mind of Loghain MacTir, “Hero of River Dane,” best friend to Maric, beloved of Rowan, father of Anora, and about to let his son-in-law and king die. He also gave Howe the nod to deal with the Couslands. Will you find him sympathetic or will hate him? I leave that up to you. : )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I made up.
> 
> This special shout out goes at the top of this chapter to my friend Night Hunter MGS, who is a fantastic writer in his own right. He is my guest writer on this chapter, and it would have been his in its entirety, but real life got in the way and he was not able to complete it. I took up that task, and I can only hope that I did not bungle it to terribly--he is so much a better writer than I am--and he does Loghain so very, very well. Thank you, my friend. I hope life does better by you and allows you to share your talent with us once more. My love and blessings go to you.
> 
> And my signature humble thanks and gratitude to you all who review and lurk. DemonicSaiyans, queenhannah, Rude, ReflctngGoddess, Orchidellia, Lady_Katana4544, Sunegami, and inquisitivegarnet, and my 12 lurkers. THANK YOU! Especially those who take time to review, it really means so much to me, and I try and respond personally every time, but I want to say it here too. The reviews are the fuel in my engine. *HUGS*
> 
> Blessings!

~Guilty Confessions~

A simple, leather bound journal found in the palace at Denerim after the Blight, the only adornment an embossed golden wyvern and the initials L.M.T. on the front cover. The spine is cracked and one corner bent and scratched, as though the journal was thrown against a hard surface in anger. There are several entries throughout the journal, with dates ranging from right after the end of the Orlesian Occupation to just before the ending of the Fifth Blight. The pages of one entry, just a few paragraphs long and located in the middle of the book, are tear-stained and crumpled, small tears—possibly from fingernails—are along the edges of the paper. 

It is this abused entry that draws our attention.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
I am a military man, pure and simple, and have been so all my adult life. I know what it is to lead, the responsibility, the consequences if I err in my judgement. I do not lightly allow myself to be drawn away from preparations and planning in the middle of a campaign. I have no time for fools wanting to gape at the so-called "Hero of the River Dane,” I have enough foolishness dealing with my blasted son-in-law. Yet, when the daughter of the only other teyrn in Ferelden comes to your tent asking for a few minutes of your time, allowances for time not spent pouring over maps and reports of troop movements must be made. Especially when Howe’s man brought surprising and unhappy tidings. 

While I was loathe to give Howe the nod to take care of the Couslands, it was necessary. Kaidana’s father did the unthinkable, even the unbelievable. When Howe told me that Bryce Cousland—the same Bryce Cousland who lost a brother at the battle of White River to the Orlesians and almost lost his own life there as well—had a meeting in Orlais with the Empress herself, I didn’t believe him. Bryce was the man who fought alongside Maric to free Ferelden. The man lost his first child to an Orlesian crossbow bolt*, the same man who witnessed the battle atop Fort Drakon between Maric and Meghren, the man who turned down the very throne itself to crown Maric’s son instead. But Howe brought me proof: letters of invitation from the Empress, witnesses who had sailed with Bryce Cousland across the Waking Sea, affidavits from witnesses of gifts from Orlesian nobility to the Couslands. 

Then there is the source from whence this information comes: Howe himself, a slippery weasel of a man. Face like a ferret, and the cold deadly cunning of a Ferelden Boomslang. Everyone knows the man is ambitious. And he covets Highever and power the way a whore covets coin. I don’t trust him, but his information was damning. I demanded Howe keep Eleanor, Kaidana, and the rest of the Couslands alive if possible—only Bryce was the traitor—but his soldier informed me that the Couslands fought back. I was livid to hear about the death of a child, though, and I sent his guard away with his ears ringing. Ringing for the child’s death, and because Kaidana witnessed her family being slaughtered and her home destroyed. But, what is done is done, and cannot be undone; no matter how I might wish it had gone differently. I learned long ago that yearning for what isn’t serves no purpose.

I observed her as I walked out to meet her: standing with the sun glistening off hair as black as a raven’s wing. Her brown leather armor fit her curves and I could see that while it was of high quality, it was well used and she was comfortable in it. The pommel of the sword jutting up from behind her back, I recognized. Her father’s sword. I would know that blade anywhere, and I will confess—only here-—that it caused a pang of regret despite Bryce’s betrayal of Ferelden. 

As with the armor, the two daggers strapped to her sides were well cared for, and well used, and as I remembered, gifts from Maric, so long ago. That memory caused another pang, one of loss and loneliness for my best and, some would say, only friend.

Speaking of Maric, I noticed his bastard standing like a faithful puppy behind her as I approached. He looks so much like Maric that it always surprises me that more comments aren’t made on his parentage. He stands and looks worried. She... she stands with a glint of defiance in those blue, blue eyes of hers. 

She is much as I remember her—from the few times she and I were ever together due to society or circumstance-—and she is as lovely as ever, her face… distinctive. I admit to having to hold back a smirk whenever I see the Elvish designs scrawling across her chin and brows, seeing it for what it is: a statement of defiance against what noble society demands of her. A subtle act of rebellion, undermining what is conventionally expected of her. It is her proof for all to see that she is not simply another useless noble harpy. How can I not approve? I understand defiance, I certainly comprehend acts of rebellion, and I know what it is to be an atypical noble. 

She also proves to have a mind for military matters. Her questions are brief, to the point, and obviously meant to give herself a fuller understanding of the current strategic situation. Were she not destined for other things, and now apparently recruited into those damned Wardens, I would have welcomed her as a lieutenant in my forces. I can appreciate her professionalism. As I can appreciate her boldness at drawing me from my tent, and her talent for strategy at fielding questions meant to dig and discover what I might know about her family’s deaths. I will admit she almost cracked my resolve. She is very clever, and very dangerous. It is only a matter of when, not if, she finds what part I played in what Howe did. And she will find out how big my role is, of that I am certain. 

Were I a younger man and not devoted to the memory of my departed wife, who deserved better from me, or the memory of my beloved Rowan, I would doubtlessly also appreciate the way her leathers move against her slender frame. As it is, I didn't comment on the fact that my guard's eyes were firmly affixed on her well-formed, leather-clad frame for the entirety of our conversation. 

Seeing her here at Ostagar, a glimmer of sadness and grief not entirely hidden in her eyes—not even by defiance and suspicion—draws my memories to another time when I saw her eyes with such a look. It was the last time I saw her outside of a Landsmeet: in Denerim, at Maric's funeral. It was cold that day, or was the chill only in my mind as I stood straight and stoic as my friend and king was commended to the Maker. 

Mine was certainly not the only solemn face that accursed day. There were other frowns, sad expressions, a few tears here and there. One of those who had tears springing from her eyes was young Kaidana, though admirably she kept herself from any outright weeping. I remember watching the tears silently tracking down her cheeks as she stared at where a body should have been. They were the only completely honest tears I saw shed that day, given not for a king but for Maric, a beloved friend. I watched her as she cried for him where I could not, as she mourned Maric, not as the king of Ferelden, but as I did, for a dear friend. And rarely have I felt as grateful to a another person as I did that day.

Anora saw Cailan’s interest in Kaidana at the funeral. It was also the day that Anora came before me and gave the only demand she ever asked of me: Cailan. Never let it be said that my daughter is not ambitious and determined, admirable enough as traits go. From the daughter of a commoner made noble to Queen of Ferelden. Anora knew I could make it happen; though born of common blood, I was the second most powerful man in Ferelden, after all. Maric's right hand and advisor to the throne. And Anora knew it was something Maric and I had discussed back when Cailan and Anora were infants.

Cailan’s interest in Kaidana has not waned, if his behavior at the war council was any indication. I watched him fawn and fondle her. I know part of his behavior was to push at me, as he has always done since he was a child. While I know she did not encourage him, I cannot help but think how close Kaidana is to the throne, that with her family’s popularity with not only the majority of the other nobles, but their popularity with the common folk only adds to her appeal. Even being a Grey Warden would not be a deterrent, as it would only make her a hero to the people, and Cailan would be sure to play that up. 

Yes, his fool notion of glory along with his complete trust in the Grey Wardens have caused no small amount of arguments amongst us. As has his dallying with other women behind Anora’s back. I know Anora not producing an heir has caused no small amount of anxiety for her, as she wishes to keep the throne. From childhood she has been able to control and manipulate Cailan, within reason, but a child born from Cailan, and the Theirin line, would secure her place. That has not happened, and not for lack of trying. But without a child between them, I think Cailan is seeing a way out of the arranged marriage made for him by his father and myself. I could hate him for it, but I know a part of him loves Anora, the other part, I am not sure of. My daughter is... a complex creature.

But it is not his wanton cosseting with women, nor his foolish desire to be a hero out of a story book that had me making the most painful decision I have ever made. It is nothing less than my blasted son-in-law, the son of my best friend and the love of my life, the man I held in my arms as a babe’s insistence that we need the Orlesians. I must let him die in this battle. 

It is a necessary sacrifice to save Ferelden. 

He brings these Grey Wardens in, and with them, opens the doors for Orlais to throttle my beloved Ferelden under a yoke of tyranny again. And for what? To save us from some darkspawn horde? This isn’t even a true Blight! That is a lie concocted by that Duncan creature—who may have been born in Ferelden, but was raised in Orlais—and happens to be the Commander of the Grey. I know it was his suggestion to call on the Orlesian Wardens, and he who put it into Cailan’s head to call on Orlesian forces. It had to be Duncan! I cannot believe the son of Maric would have thought of that on his own! No! Duncan knew of Cailan’s weakness for legends, and the Grey Wardens. Duncan used that, and now we stand on the brink of having Ferelden wear an Orlesian collar once more. 

I will not see this country enslaved, no matter how much of my love Rowan, or my best friend, I see in that fool Cailan. He is naive, but Ferelden will not suffer from his foolishness. Orlais is the true threat here, as they have always been, not the darkspawn. 

I have made my decision. May Maric and Rowan forgive me, may my daughter forgive me as well. I do as I have always done: my duty. As for the Maker, may he help me.

May he help us all.

 

*Bryce’s son dying by crossbow bolt refers to the wonderful story by my friend Ladyamesindy, We Do What Must Be Done. I do hope you will all read it.


	22. Not Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, the prisoner in the cage whom Kai helped. I wanted to give his take. He is such a minor character, but you see his remains in the cage at Ostagar when you go back. I really wanted to make his part larger and to have my readers feel for him. I hope I succeed. I hope you’ll watch for Kai’s reaction to finding him in “First Cut” when I finally get back to Ostagar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I made up.
> 
> And last but not least, my love and gratitude to all who review. I love your feedback, and suggestions. Feel free to PM me too. You reviewers, and my lurkers, just make my life brighter. Really, I had no idea that people would actually want to read what I write, let alone take time out to tell me so. You rock! Thank you.
> 
> Blessings!

You know, Maker, we don’t talk much. Never really had a lot in common, I suppose. But since I’m sittin’ here with nothin’ to do until the guard, Quigley—who turned out to be a right good chap, actually, who knew?—gets back on guard duty with me. I figured since you’re ignorin’ all us humans after what happened with your lady friend, you’d have nothing better to do, either. So here we are then.

You know, I hear everythin’ that goes on around here. Well, at least I do when the wind blows in the right direction, voices echo off of walls, or they come close enough to my humble abode. And speaking of wind, it has picked up! A storm’s coming. I can smell the rain in the air, and something else, something fetid and menacing. 

Quigley and I had a long chat after she left. Yes, her, Kai. I won’t forget the name. How could I? It’s because of her that Quigley started feeding me, gave me fresh straw for the cage, and even gave me a blanket. I don’t know what she said to him to get him to hand over his meal, let alone his change in conscience. He told me I am to have a proper hearing after the battle is over, so I am not to be hanged outright.

She did that. 

I don’t know what I’d hoped would happen when I motioned her over... what, was it really just a day ago? So hard to tell when the world rolls by you like a stream does a rock. 

She sat on a bench with that young soldier. I had hoped she would pity me and help me stop the terrible aching of my empty stomach. I didn’t expect a champion. I pleaded my case and, instead of pity, I saw anger. Not anger at me, but for me. 

I don’t know what the discussion entailed when the young man dragged her off to speak with her—despite her very vicious and determined look—other than it was about me, since she gestured in my direction. But she nodded and seemed to take comfort in his touch, which is a good thing. 

There is something that haunts the edges of her eyes, Maker. And such pretty blue ones, too, set in a very pretty face, even covered as it is in that tattooin’ that them knife-ears do.

I have seen that same haunted look on my granda’s eyes when he spoke of the massacre of Gwaren by the Orlesians when he was a child. He was the only survivor of his family, saved by hiding under his dead mum and sister. 

Something bad happened to that pretty miss. It’s good she has a good friend in that boy walkin’ around with her. I know you and I don’t always see eye to eye, Maker. And, really, I’d stop lying and stealin’ if you’d give me more reasons to prove that honesty is the best policy. But, for her, I’m askin’. She did right by me, did more than most would do, which is nothin’. They’d have looked at the cage and seen a man who was a criminal, nothin’ more, but not her.

Ah, Quigley’s back on shift with me tonight and it looks like I get not only some food, but beer as well. Sorry, Maker, a man should have his priorities, right?

One last thing... don’t let her fall in the battle, Maker. Not her. Please, not her.


	23. A Tale of Two Witches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so we have a special two for one chapter with Flemeth and Morrigan. I hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all except what i made up.
> 
> Also my deepest gratitude to those who reviewed. It is so nice of you to take the time out of your busy lives to let me know what you think. *HUGS*

My mother sits on the branch next to me in owl form, like myself. It allows us to see in the dark, not that we need it with all the torches and the fires from the battle. 

It does not do to stare at Mother, but I cannot help but gape at her, for Mother revealed another piece of her plan. And while ‘tis a small piece, the news was... disturbing, to say the least. Mother and her “friend” wish for me to seduce one of the Grey Wardens and allow them to get me with child sometime before the final blow to the Archdemon is struck. The soul of the Old God within the dragon should go to the child upon the beast’s death blow. 

The soul of a god in the body of a human, what kind of power would that be? But why Flemeth and her demon should want such a dangerous being to be brought into the world, I know not. ‘Tis more vexing than the missing part of Mother’s plan which she will not reveal to me since the bearded one and the rest of his kind are to die in battle—again, how Mother has foreseen this, I know not, but she has been right more often than she has been wrong—my choices are the dimwit or the fool cutpurse. ‘Tis hardly a choice at all. 

If only the annoying female were a male, but if she had been, it would be certain that she too would be as stupid and foolish as the other two. Wishing is a fool’s endeavor, time would be better spent spitting into one hand and wishing in the other to see which fills up faster.

Such power that such a thing would create, surely it would be incalculable. Surely Flemeth could not hope to control such a soul once it manifested itself into a human vessel? And such power she has always sought for herself. Why let such power reside outside her direct control? For, surely, the child would have its own mind. 

‘Tis most aggravating. I know Mother has more planned, some angle, some aspect that I am unable to see as of yet. But we may yet have time, Mother and I, to dance a while longer yet. That is, if our plans for this night go well. 

I am to fly behind Mother and once we reach the tower, I am to cast a spell to knock out the Grey Wardens, and help clear out any of the darkspawn that will be there. Then I am, in wolf form, to lead the flea bag mongrel that belongs to the female Warden—if she survives the tower battle—back to our hut. Mother will follow with the Warden and her moron companions.

I would not bother with the cur, myself. ‘Tis not practical to my mind; the mutt will live or die on its own strength. But Flemeth assures me its loss would cause the Warden too much distress, and that it would interfere with our plans. Mine is not to question such, but to do as I am told. If I have my way, that will not always be so. 

How Flemeth knows there will be darkspawn at the tower, how she knows the King will fall by an ogre, how she knows that there will be no aid from the other troops... I have learned not to ask. It would only earn me a slap in the face or worse. I know it has to do with Mother’s symbiotic friend, and her visits to the Black City. 

And, because of that, I walk with caution. I will go along, but I am watching, looking for a weakness in Mother’s plan. My part in this is more than being a prize mare for some stallion at the county fair. I must not let Flemeth know. 

I will have to be twice as clever and move much more quick. No easy feat. This is Flemeth, my mother, who is beyond the mere meaning of abomination. If the Chantry had any idea... but they are simplistic fools, and I... I am not such a dullard as the Chantry seems to attract.

No, I shall bide my time. I shall see how useful this female Warden may yet be. She is brave and smart. Brave enough to stare down Mother, and smart enough to know that Flemeth is more than she appears to be. Yes, I think that the Warden will prove more useful than even Mother realizes. It will be not be easy, but then, that which is worth having rarely is. I must keep my monitoring of the Warden by magic a secret.

*************************************

I can feel Morrigan’s eyes upon me as we sit watching the battle below. Men, women, mabari, and darkspawn all clash in a ringing of metal and screams.

The smell of blood would normally have my “partner” squirming in gleeful joy. But not tonight. It slumbers for now. The enjoyment it took from the death I see now with my physical eyes, it took from the reflections in the Hall of Smoking Mirrors in the Black City. 

Such foresight takes much power. The Black City and its halls of the damned don’t readily give up secrets or power. But if one has the patience, the wherewithal, the cold calculation, and the willingness to wield one’s will as a sharp blade then such secrets can be wrested from its iron-like grasp. So, my friend sleeps the slumber of its kind and delights in what others would call nightmares and what it calls the dance of the void. 

Never let it be said that Asha'bellanar has a lack of will. In that regard, Morrigan is indeed my creation, mine own. She is as I made her to be. 

Ah, yes, my daughter, if you had only seen the look on your face when I told of the plan to steal the soul of an Old God. Even now, you plan and scheme to use this to your advantage. How delightful. They say children are a reflection of their parents, little mirrors. And you are a beautiful—if predictable—pane of glass, much like that mirror I smashed when you were small. 

How quickly you turn your eyes away when I catch you watching me.

Yes, Morrigan, you will do well in implementing our plans. Especially while being allowed to believe that there is a way out for you. Again, predictable. 

The only one not so calculable is that female Warden. She remains beyond our reach to read in the smoke and panes of the hall of screams. It is... disturbing. It has been many decades... centuries? Or perhaps it is only days. Time does seem to flow by when one is as we are, since we have been unsettled by anything. 

I find the sensation to be intriguing, unsettling, and even a little amusing—my “companion” is less amused. It is difficult for something to surprise us. This Warden, she is a source of consternation.

How tasty. 

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I have for saving her tonight. Well, and if I do not, the Blight will surely destroy Ferelden as the men with her are incompetent fools—as men so often are. Yes, this woman, is... something. She reminds me of myself as I was, so long ago. What is that word? Ah yes, nostalgia, the twin of regret. 

I wonder: will she let her regrets drown her? Or will she fall, and in falling, learn how to fly? The precipice awaits her. And soon now the fall. It will be interesting to see if she grows wings.


	24. Bedside Manners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little peek into Daveth’s thoughts on Kai, I hope you enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns all but what I made up.
> 
> My special appreciation to all who take the time to review and comment, it means the world to me.
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting but work has been horribly busy. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and for your time. 
> 
> Blessngs!

We see the roguish cutpurse sitting on a stool next to the prone figure of Kaidana “Kai” Cousland on a rickety looking wooden bed in an equally run down looking hut. 

There are books on the floor and human skulls on an altar in the darker shadows where the light from the fireplace does not penetrate. The air is dank, musty, herbal, and filled with the heavy smell of smoke, dead soldiers and darkspawn both living and dead. 

It is a day since the Battle of Ostagar was lost, along with Ferelden’s king, when the King’s strategist and hero of the people quit the battlefield despite Kai and her group lighting the beacon. 

Kai was severely wounded as the tower was overrun with darkspawn, taking several arrows. She has remained unconscious since the previous day and the better part of the next, despite healing potions and healing from a very powerful mage.

************************************************************************************************************

Come on, love, open those lovely blue eyes would ya? We’ve been waiting on you. And, quite frankly, these witches have done right by us, healin’ us and all, but the old one gives me a case of the scuzzies.

She’s got this look in her eyes, like lookin’ into a deep, dark pit. My da’s eyes looked like that, the day he beat my mam to death in fit of rage. That cold, dark look that made the anger of his actions even more frightening. I never told no one about that. It’s the same day I ran away. Still somethin’ I can’t quite forgive myself for. I didn’t try and save her. I ran. I don’t know if I could have, but I wish I’d tried. Maybe I’ll get to fix the books on that as a Grey Warden, eh?

Speaking of Grey Wardens, our fellow Warden, Alistair, he made it, in case you didn’t hear him when he’s talked to you. Well, I’m afraid if you don’t wake up soon, he’s goin’ to throw himself into one of those ponds out there and drown himself. He is takin’ things a bit... hard, shall we say? 

That Morrigan is a right nice piece to to look at, bet she could take my mind off things—if I didn’t think she wouldn’t freeze the gift to women the Maker gave me. It might be fun to find out, as danger has its appeal, but I figure I might should stay human and out of the cooking pot. Alas, no distraction there.

And wouldn’t ya know it? Dropped into a cabin full of books and me not bein’ able to read. I can scratch my name in the dirt, but only because some right pretty fellow thief showed me once after we had, well... let’s just say, come together, and leave it at that. But even if I could read even a bit, those books smell funny and they give me the shivers just lookin’ at ‘em. 

So I am lookin’ at something much better. And while you give me the shivers when I look at you, it’s in a good way, love, I promise. Both witches assured us you’ll live, thank the Maker and His Bride. 

You are somethin’ else. I don’t know what to think of you. You are easy on the old eyes, and I like to look. As you told me, I am an admirer of the female form. But there is somethin’ else about you. Somethin’ the old bugger saw, I suspect... I... Duncan is... Okay, I can’t. I can’t talk about it twice. He was more than my old da was. So, I’ll tell you when you wake up. I won’t be able to get through it again. 

Where was I, love? Oh, yeah, you. Noble with elven writing on yer face. You fight dirty just like a cutpurse, and you can steal like one, too, yet you’ve never had a day of want in your life, I bet. Yet you treat everyone the same when you should stick your nose up at me, lowly thief and pickpocket that I am. 

Yer clever and funny, and you fight like a demon. Don’t think we would have made it to the top of the tower without you. Well, you need to fight and come back now, because, quite frankly, as mopey as our friend has been, if you don’t come back, I might drown him myself. So, get your very delightful backside back out of that bed and save me the trouble, won’t ya?

Ah, that lovely Morrigan just popped in, her nose in the air, mind you, to tell me the stew is ready. I’d best get myself out there or I may find myself as tomorrow night’s dinner. 

You know, I once heard a story by a travelin’ bard about a man who kissed a lass sleepin’ under a spell and it woke her up. Wonder if it will work? No? Ah, well, it was worth a try. And at least ya can’t slap me for tryin’ now can you, darlin’? I assure you, it’s much more enjoyable if you participate. 

Well, I’m off, love. Be back soon with Alistair to try and spoon some food into you. But I would really love to see those eyes open, so give it a go, will ya?


End file.
